The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE MONDAY, JANUARY 14, 1918. POLITICAL DICTATION RESENTED.

Taihape Daily Times, 14 January 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

MONDAY, JANUARY 14, 1918. POLITICAL DICTATION RESENTED.

(With which is incorporated The Tai hupe Post and Waunarino News).

The head or the New Zealand autocracy and his' henchmen have encountered a ratner stiff proposition In aie Wellington North constituency, aie nat went forth from the self-ap-pointed ah-poweriuls that a certain a. P. Luke, a man of the chameleon onaracter, must be elected to 111 the vacancy in Parliament caused by the xion. Mr Herdman elevatiug himself trorn the dingy office of his private practice to a position as Supreme Court judge. A docile, long-suffering people allow the usurpers of legislative and administrative right to go on muddling through, and to help themselves to positions and perquisites of one kind and another, but when it comes to forcing a veritable "Vicar of Bray" on them the people of; Wellington North suddenly discover that there is a little self-respect still left in them collectively and they set about asserting it. Mr J P. Luke is a very good man, in fact Wellington North realises that he is altogether too good, and, despite the decree of the grat self-appointed "I am," they respectfully and persistently affirm that they do not want him and that they will not have him, and these hitherto over-faithful backers of a legitimate conservative regime revolt. They are giving the pwple of New Zealand a practical demonstration in the exercise of the popular will of the fact that with the people rests the supreme power, and that this power can be used even to the suppressing of a decree from the first lord of any political faction. This expression of the people's will, and exercise of the people's power as opposed to the wiii and fiat of the Prime Minister is very inconvenient, and, to say the least, it is somewhat indignifying to him and his party. It is a reminder of the fact that he and his brother reformers are not New Zealand, and that final appeal must be made, not to those wishing to attach themselves like barnaclgs to the ship of state, but to the people as a whole. By bad generalship and the exercise of a little pigheadedness the Premier has suffered an irritating defeat and has had to back down before the will of Wellington North constituency, and Mr Herdman's elevation to the Supreme Court judgeship has had to be postponed until Mr Luke is safely laid aside where his feelings of chagrin and disappointment will not be unduly agitated, ana where he will be least -harmful to the party machine. It is to be hoped that a candidate for Mr Herdman's political shoes will soon be found, because if he is to become a judge there is nothing to be gained by delaying the appointment. Cabinet having decided the question, it is not likely that even a change of Government would interfere with the completion of the appointment. The trouble 19 to find a staunch reformer acceptable to Wellington North and until that is overcome Mr Herdman has to remain between cup and lip, where, it is sale!, there are many slips. We hope that the experience the Premier is undergoing will bo a lesson to him and to all other politicians, whatever be t?!eir colour, that the popular will and interest cannot be flouted with impunity by any man or party.