THE Pukekohe and Waiuku Times PUBLISHED TUESDAYS AND FRIDAYS TUESDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1914. A PLEA FOR A NATIONAL PARTY.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 3, Issue 260, 29 December 1914, Page 2

THE Pukekohe and Waiuku Times PUBLISHED TUESDAYS AND FRIDAYS TUESDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1914.

A PLEA FOR A NATIONAL PARTY.

" We nothing extenuate, nor *et down auoht in malice

No one taking an intelligent interest in the welfare of the Dominion can survey the political situation withuut a feeling of uneasiness as to the outcome of the present unfortunate dead-lock. For, if we are to look upon the Opposition and the Labour Party as one, a deadlock it certainly is, for neither Mr Masaey nor Sir Joseph Ward can command a majority capable of carrying on the of the country with anything like the security of tenure necessary for the pursuance of a fixed policy. We have said "if we are to look upon the Opposition and Labour a* one," because if we are io judge by Sir Joseph Ward's preelection utterances there is neither alliance nor arrangement between t.bem. We may, notwithstanding, take it that up to a certain point thi-y are one, and that point is the removal of the Reform Party from the Government benches. But after that, what then? Can we by any stretch of the imagination conceive it to be possible that men like, say, Mr Payne, Mr Webb and Mr McCombes can pull in the same boat as Mr Myers, Mr Jennings and Mr McDonald, and if they do, who is to set the stroke, the firat three or the list three? Could the Ship of State be safely navigated by so mixed a crew? Not only we, but tie whole Empire, are sailing upon the stormiest seas we have ever encountered, and if ever there was a time that the country needed the guidance of a truly National Party that time is now. Everyone who places his country above mere party triumphs, pleasant though these may be, and has watched political matters with eyes unblinded by [partisan prejudices, must have noted with regret and apprehension the steadily growing decadence of Parliament and the increasing reluctance of the best and ablest of our citizens to enter the pilitical arena. The claim to represent a constituency, once ttie prize of acknowledged ability and tried intergity, has been abandoned

id far too many cases to the brassfaced mob-orator or the smoothtongued political Charlatan, with the result that instead of the

national life becoming fuller and wider as the country grows older and develops it narrows and shrivels under the blight of parochialism and opportunism. The poverty ot the choice presented to the electors must make thousands of them bewail the fact that they must record their votes, not to put a desirable candidate in, but to keep out a still more undesirable one. No doubt the day will arrive when this present age will be pointed at by the historian as the fatuous period when the wise and the foolish, the learned and the

ignorant, (he honest citizen and the rogue, were piven equal political powers; the age when authority was dethroned ar.d reason, her sole legitimate successor, not yet placed ia her seat; when neither political economy nor its complement, political philosophy, was t;mght in our schools, hut every man left to manufacture his own crude concep-

1 ion of those vital subjects for himself, or, still worse, to take the garbled views of interested politicians for gospel. But the hour to see ourselves ai we really are has not yet been struck, and in the meanwhile we must face things as they exist, and Btrive to tatter them. What we need is a truly "National" party in its best and broadest sense,—really a coalition uf all in our legislature who are ready to strive upward ai well as onward, and who would unite together for the wise and stable governance of the Dominion and be I fill d wuh the determination to i make us worthv to hold our plac?s ■as part of our glorious Empire. That sacrifices of persons! ambitions must be made to do this, that aspirations for place snJ power must remain,in some instances uofuifilledis certain, but the men who have the courage to realitc that their country has a higher claim upon them than any political Itader can have may rest assured they will earn a higher placa in the esteem and confident of their fellow citizens than they would ever gain by plunging the country into chaos and unrrst by a slavish obedience ti the crack cf the party whip.