The Manawatu Herald. Tuesday, March 26, 1912. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1023, 26 March 1912, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Tuesday, March 26, 1912. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

During the last session of the late Parliament, Mr Field, then member tor Otaki, urged the Government to pass legislation making it illegal tor Parliamentary candidates to use motor cars to convey electors to the poll. No action was taken by the Government. This subject, however, was touched upon by Sir Joseph Ward at a recent social function in Wellington. He said “the abuse of the motor car system at elections was an abuse that ought to be reckoned with, and he suggested that the use of vehicles on polling day should be prohibited, but that in country electorates the State should employ motor cars, carrying the Returning Officer and scrutineers, to go round among the people —'Women, and such persons, and so on —and thus go still further towards ensuring the recording of votes. If, in addition, they prohibited canvassing, they would get as near to a perfect electoral system as possible, and ensure the return ol the be 4 -! men to Parliament.” There are plenty of electors who would refuse to record their votes if they were not conveyed to the polling booth. They make no secret of the fact that if their vole is worth having it is worth coming for. While we agree with the travelling returning officer suggestion in older that the sick and leeble should not be disfranchised, we have got no time for the careless and indifferent who think so little oi the great privileges coulerred upon them, it a man or woman does not take sufficient interest in the government of the country as to desire a voice in the election of the country's lawmakers, then they should be disfranchised. Our Parliament should reflect the intelligence of the people. Canvassing and motor cars, the latter to convey indifferent people to the polls, should be made illegal, and we hope some such amendment to the electoral law as suggested by Sir Joseph Ward will be passed in due time.

It is an open secret that the rejection ol the Hon. Mr Millar as successor to Sir Joseph Ward, was due to the determined opposition to this gentleman by the Labour three at the caucus. It is all very well for Sir Joseph Ward to iuiorm the public that the conference was a very harmonious gathering, but we have reason to believe otherwise. At different times during the sittings certain members became very heated and finally the Party found itself at the mercy of the pledge breakers and so-called Independents, and, finally, they had their way. It is a thousand pities that Sir Joseph Ward did not tender his resignation when Parliament assembled, instead of trying to carry on by using men who had dishonoured their pledges. Retribution is following closely on such tactics. Anyhow, the Labour men determined that Mr Millar should nut

succeed to the leadership. The Wellington Post asks : “How then has Mr Millar been passed over ? The luck has been against him, but he has also himself to blame. We ascribe it mostly to the malace of fortune that one who was a pioneer in the labour cause more than twenty years ago, when the status of a Labour agitator was not the respectable thing that it is now, should have had to encounter the bitter hostility of Labour just when the highest prize ot politics seemed to be within his reach. No Labour leader in this country has ever had to show the courage, the nerve, and the determination that Mr Millar’s responsibility for the great maritime strike of 1890 demanded of him. A few years later he was representing the workers in Parliament, and until he took office he remained their most conspicuous Parliamentary champion. But office brought the inevitable estrangement. The obligations of a Minister of the Crown are different from those of the secretary of a Labour Union, and the conflict resulted in suspicion. ill-will and charges of bad faith. Friends who have fallen out become too often the worst ol enemies. Mr Millar has never been forgiven by his friends in the Labour Party, and to their implacable hostility and the opposition of the partisans of Prohibition his disappointment must be in large part attributed. But, as we have said, he has also himself to blame. His abilities are such that if he had brought their full weight to bear he coula have made himself indispensable to his patty, and worn down all sectional opposition, but this he has failed to do. The impression of vigour which he made when he first took office has not been sustained, and he has recently given but fitful displays of the remarkable Parliamentary power with which he won golden opinions by bis management ot the Tariff Bill in 1907. The man who in our opinion is best qualified by nature and by experience to lead the Liberal Party cannot throw all the blame on to fortune for his failure to realise his ambition.”