The Sun TUESDAY, AUGUST 21, 1928 POLITICAL JAPHETS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 438, 21 August 1928, Page 8

The Sun TUESDAY, AUGUST 21, 1928 POLITICAL JAPHETS

IT is an old and sardonic pleasure in party politics for the stronger parties to study the decline of a weak rival whose trouble migiit well be diagnosed as political tuberculosis. As Mr. Lloyd George, with something of his best flair for vivid metaphor, observed the other day about gloating political onlookers, “the Tories and the Socialists had been watching his old party die, winking at one another across the bed, and coming to a tacit understanding to divide the assets.” But the tough Liberals of the kingdom—the party that gave the Empire in our own day statesmen like Gladstone, Rosebery (too precious and decorative to last long as a gladiator in the parliamentary arena), CampbellBannerman, Asquith, Lloyd George, and lesser stars in the Liberal firmament like Grey of Fallodon, Sir -John Simon, and the late Viscount Haldane, whose death on Sunday made another big gap in the thin ranks of the Victorian stalwarts, and recalled memories of a’ massive man, brimful of cheerful vigour, but apt to gush over in a spate of talk—have no intention of giving up the ghost yet. They believe that their troubles are passing away. Neither circumstances nor prospects are so good with the last of the Liberals in this country. Like the Egyptians in the vision of Isaiah, “their strength is to sit still.” The remnant, indeed, is a single unit, not a party. Sir Joseph Ward alone represents the traditional glory of New Zealand Liberalism which, in the fullness of its great day, led all the world in progressive polities and political humanitarianism. And now an effort is being made to fulfil the ancient prophecy “that the remnant . . . shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward.” A Press message from Winnipeg today reports that Sir Joseph Ward, who is passing through Canada on his way home, intimated to an interviewer that he had been invited by cablegram to become the leader of the New Zealand United Party. The story, as sent from the prairies of Canada, has an intriguing verisimilitude. There is reference in it to the pleadings of fifty United Party candidates. But its authenticity is challenged on grounds which hold more naive surprise than solid foundation. Mr. A. J. Stallworthy, the United Party candidate for Eden, has explained that he had not been consulted about the reported invitation to the lone leader of the Liberal Party to become the' head of the “Uppos” and the fount of their inspiration. If it be true that half-a-hundred U.P. candidates have cabled to Sir Joseph to lead the party of political Japhets whose search of a father appears to be as hard a task as that of Marryatt’s hero, then all that can be said about it is that it is a complete surprise to Mr. Stallworthy. It will be more than a complete surprise to everybody interested in the fate of the leaderless tribe if the veteran Liberal should agree to become its guide, philosopher and friend. Sir Joseph Ward has done some politically foolish things in his time, though he at least was never fool or knave enough to desert his cause or burlesque bis political identity, but his many friends will find it difficult to see him spoil a long and an honourable day by accepting leadership in a dim twilight. Meanwhile, to use “L.G.’s” friendly terms, the Tories and the Socialists are watching the new party struggling to live, and winking at one another across the bed, hoping to divide the assets. The Labour Party would like to see the feeble adventurers enter the Socialist camp in order to put the Government out of office. The Reform Party openly invites the Uniteds to join up in recognition of the fact that there is no real political difference between them. To quote with adaptation the Wizard of Wales again, the United-Nationalist-Liberal Party “could easily be prosecuted for putting too much water into the Reform milk.” Out of all these invitations something impressive may come, “but, ah! not yet, not yet.”