THE GENERAL ELECTION.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXX, Issue 13, 2 September 1914, Page 4

THE GENERAL ELECTION.

Now Zealand’s internal loolitics do not fill a very large place in the public mind just now, because the great struggle for our very life and freedom overshadows all else. But the matter of the next General Election for the House of Representatives is in front of us, and must be considered as a probability. The Otago Daily Times holds that it is decidedly premature to suggest a postponement of the election which in the Ordinary : course of events will be held late in the month of November; or early in the month oi December, because iat ' least, three .months, lie between ns and the prole •able! date of the election. Those three months will be productive of gteat events, the’effect of which will be seen iu a considerable alteration in the map oi Europe, not to the disadvantage or Great Britain. In less than three months momentous occurrences, profoundly affecting the future history of the world, will have come to pass. Within the next month the most critical period in the war in Europe should be witnessed. The Russians are sanguine enough to .believe that they will reach Berlin in three weeks’ time, Even it they should.then be only halfway to Berlin the whole *1 the war will have changed. The Germans who are now sacrificing their troops freely in their, desperate plfon to strike at Paris will no- longer be

conducting offensive operations. They v.ill he hard put to it to defend the approaches to their capita! against the Allies who will he pressing in upon them from all sides. Jf events should fail out in this way, there will be realh

no reason, our contemporary considers, why the people of New Zealand should not be by the end of November in such i frame of mind as will admit of thei; making suitable choice of their representatives, in the next Parliament and of expressing a sober judgment upon the licensing issue. The promoters of the petition which is now being circulated, praying for a postponement of the election, assume that the degree of public anxiety concerning the wai will be such towards the end of the year that the electors will not be concerned to perform their duty at the polls. There is, however, no actual warrant for such an assumption. The Ti mes concludes it will be .time enough a mouth hence to decide whether any postponement of the election is desirable.