AN INTERESTING DISCLOSURE.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3355, 6 December 1919, Page 6

AN INTERESTING DISCLOSURE.

HOW CONSERVATISM RUNS

"REFORM."

SIB WALTER BUCHANAN

EMERGES,

The following interesting article appeared in a recent issue of the Auckland Star. We hope that our readers will give it careful attention, as :t throws an instructive light upoa the intimate relations always suspected, but persistently repudiated denied, that exists between the "Bef.,rto" party and our Conserve* /e Landed aristocracy, of whom Sir Suitor Buchanan is a leading me-eher:— THE POWER BEHIND THE THRONE. , - \ It is to be hoped that the electors everywhere, not only in this constituency, but throughout the Dominion, will pa careful attention to. the facts which Mr Matheson (Independent Reform candidate for. th e Masterton seat) made public last'Friday night. Addressing a political meeting at Masterton, Mr Matheson explained at length how his attempt to stand for Parliament there bad brought him into conflict with the Masseyite "Power behind the Throne," and he proceeded to disclose the precise position in which the "Reform" Party stands in, regard to Sir Walter Buchanan. This ! gentleman evidently exercises practi- j cally sovereign authority over the \ party, so far as the selection of its j candidates is concerned, and when for ,

any given reason a politician wishing to stand for Parliament in the "Reform" interest fails to come up -to Sir Walter Buchanan's test of fitness, or.aannot -'pass muster" under his eagle eye, the candidate must .either withdraw or go to the poll with the full knowledge that the party vote and the party organisation will be used to support some more acceptable mouthpiece of Conservatism. In this case Mr Matheson had announced his candidature some considerable time before the sitting member, Mr Sykes, came into the field; and he refused to accept Sir .Walter Buchanan's request—perhaps we should say "command"—to stand aside because, as he told his audience, he objects to dictation of that sort, and also because he considers there is far too much of the caucus and the "machine" about "Reform" politics, and on his own confession he Wants something '' cleaner and more democratic." If Mr Matheson is out for clean and democratic methods of government, we fail to see why he does not support Liberalism, which can supply him with both these requisites. But that, after all, is between Mr" Matheson and hi s own :cnseience, and what we *are ohiefly mterested in just now is the part ivhich Sir Walter Buchanan is cvidenty filling, not on the political stage but )ehind the scenes, for the benefit of he Masseyites. . .

Perhaps we had better remark here j ,nd now that nothing we have to say J n 9 intended to reflect invidiously on | he character or conudtTt of Sir Walter j - tachanan. He is no doubt quite an [ stimable person, but his public record ardly suggests that he would be i;ed by the people of New Zea* with their full knowledge and ■lit, "as th.e ;con(troll(cr |of their lies. Sir "Walter Buchanan is n by repute to most people in sountry, as a man of wealth, a big j holder, and on e of the strongest ; eial supporters of that Wellington Eorm" organ which has rendered : notorious for years past by its ;ie abuse of the Liberal Party ana >ader, and to thos c who take any est in our .political history he is liar as one of the most resolute obstinate opponents of Liberalism all its works, one of the few surrs of that clique of bigoted reac-. iry Conservatives who so strenuy resisted the democratic policy Jalfence and Seddon and Ward a ■ter of a century ago. To Sir WalBuchanan and the men who shared political crtfed i" those days, Old Pensions, Land for Settlement, ocratic Suffrage, Democratic Adistration, anything and everything Literalism imported into our onal and political life were alike dutionary, outrageous, and detest- •; What Sir Walter himself thought said about these matters is re- J led at length in "Hansard"; and I that we need say about this side of j question now is that a man of Sir Iter's age Sand temperament and tical antecedents is tolerably ceri to be not less but more Conserive and Teaetiionary to-day '(than showed himself to be a generation low, this is th e man to whom Mr ssey and his friends - have delegated insk of selecting their candidates; I what we wish particularly to ;ss forvthe benefit of our roaders is-, 3, that if Mr Massey and his partyi the victory in.this present cont it ip, to Sir Walter Buchanan and •small, but influential, group of Con., votive land-owners who look- up to.

him aa their guide and leader that the cater and futu.e of New Zealand are to be entrusted. For ft; is manifest that if Sir Walter Buchanan is to be allowed to decide what candidates shall or shall not stand for "Reform" in a given constituency, he is literally dictating and prescribing the policy which the Masseyites arc prepared to support. For we should not imagine [that Sir Walter would select a "Reform" candidate who did not profess the "Reform" creed, and we would not accuse- Mr Massey of keeping one type of "Reform" for the Wairarapa, and another for the rest of the Dominion. Thus the triumph of Masseyism will mean the subordination of all our political and economic and industrial and social and national requirements and aspirations to the prejudices of a highly Conservative old gentle-' man, whom the electors have refused to send to Parliament, and whose only claim to be accepted as the supreme arbiter of our destinies is that he is regarded by hi s own friends as "the political godfather of Reform, in the Wairarapa." We do not think these facts require much elaboration, in fact they seem ft> us almost to defy

comment. But we must draw one obvious moral, by pointing to the marvellous discrepancy between the picture of'"Reform" policy thus revealed to our gaze and the claims and assertions of the "Reformers." Nothing seems to exasperate Mr Massey or the average Masseyite more effectulaly than the suggestion that he and his party I are dominated and controlled by the "Squatoeraey," the groat "land-hold-ing interests that Mr. Massey has so I long and loyally protected. Yet here ' is proof positive on the authority of a 'well-known member of the "Reform" 1 Party, that "Reform" policy is, as we have said, dictated by the "Uncrown- ' ed King" of our onservative landed aristocracy. And this is the "democracy" that 'Reform" in a recent picturesque but pathetic advertisement implores the electors to Ibve and cherish! The people of New Zealand will give their answer at the polls.