VERY TRANSPARENT

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8357, 18 February 1913, Page 6

VERY TRANSPARENT

The New Zealand squatters’ organ is unfeignedly delighted at the British Conservatives’ decision to institute what is termed a “Radical plutocracy inquiry.” Why this joy and endorsement of Toryism? Have wo not been told again and again that the political side in this country which the great landowners newspaper stands for is not Conservative —that, indeed, Masseyism is a synonym for the only true Liberalism, for all that is democratic and progressive, even (dreadful word!) Radical? In view of all these claims, such warm sympathy as the squatters’ organ shows with the Conservatives in the Old Country is surely indiscreet. It gives the show away. Our socalled Reformers pretend to be ready to outdo all the Liberals in the way of land taxation, old age .pensions, social insurance, and the like. Yet the British' Liberals, with their Very moderate schemes, by comparison, are pounced upon by the squatters’ organ on every conceivable occasion and denounced as “Jafeobins,” while words fail to express its admiration for the Tories. Unless the pretence that “Reform” is Liberal and progressive is to bo wholly abandoned, a change of tactics will need to be made. It is no use trying to run with the progressives, or even the “moderate Liberals ” in tbis country and to hunt with the hide-bound Tories in Britain. \Ve remember the land monopolists' journal arguing some months ago in favour of free trade—“free exchange” was the term employed—while the self-styled Reform party is pledged to lessen the cost of living by reducing Customs duties. Why, then, are the British food-taxers and opponents of Liberalism in such special favour with our contemporary? Why applaud every attack on Radicalism in Britain and at the same time commend the Alassey Government to the people for its Radicalism? We do not imagine that the “Radical plutocrats” at Home are in any difficulties. The Tory “inquiry” appears to us a particularly futile substitute for a policy. But the attitude of the squatters’ -organ in this country must prove disconcerting to its friends. The stage management is defective, to say the least. Consistency is, we know, an old-fashioned virtue too cumbersome for “Reform,” but why rush to extremes in the other direction, to the limit of transparent humbug?