The Taihaps Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1920. A NEW POLITICAL PARTY.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3609, 22 October 1920, Page 4

The Taihaps Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1920. A NEW POLITICAL PARTY.

With which is incorporated "The Taihape Post and Waimarino News "

It was a foregone conclusion that •such niailed-nst methods of conducting Parliament, as his masters have forced upon Mr Mfissey could not continue unchallenged for very long. Even the man ju the street has commenced to talk about : '-Parliament having lost its self-respect in submitting to what may fairly be termed indignities, and there is widespread disgust at the grab of the last inch of land in which the people had any Interest. Hence, such old-time loyal members of the Reform Party as Dr Newman, Sykes and Mr Stathain are resenting the over-reaching innovations forced on the Reform rank and file, and are joining with Liberals, Labour members and Independents in evolving a party with a policy somewhat on the lines of that persisted in by» the oldtime Liberal regime. It is apparent that a reshuffling of the political cards is inevitable, for, in addition to a splitting up process amongst parties opposing the Government, the party in power is by no means a happy family, being ruled more T>y fear than by any political conviction other than that of the fact that if they dare to become obdurate and kick over the traces they will not onbt lose party support at the next general election but wi'll also have a more tractable party slave put \tp against them. It is remarkable that j to-day there are probably more Members in the House than ever before who are there in their own interests, and only stand for the country's interests when they do not clash with their own. In reading Hansard it ?s difficult to avoid the idea that there is a great amount of humbug sandwiched between pure earnest desire {to establish a sane social and intius!trial condition that is calculated to stem industrial unrest and bring a speedy return to industrial contentment. Bolshevik tendencies of the j extreme Labour Members should, in | the interests of common peace an<s safety, be kept within limits through which vicious principles cannot harmfully pass, but it is time that Mr Mf'Fsey, as well as all other sensible people, realised that extreme Labour T>ecorae/ more rampant and" dangerous by keeping up a perpetual prodding that it ever could become if the people were fully and frankly apprised of what the ultimate sought by extremists! really is. It is nothing more than the bludgeon attitude of the Reform party that is splitting the House into numerous sections, and it may be taken for fact that many who now vote at Mr Massey's dictation will promptly transfer their allegiance when they discover the Reform lines are likely to be broken; This Dominion's greatest want of the moment is rapid reconstruction of its industries, primary and secondary, and if it is determined to try to effect anything of the kind without first making it possible for population to live where reconstruction demands their pres

euce, war and not peace may be looked for. The time of Parliament at the close of the greatest, war in history is wasted upon a proposal to increase the number of totalisator permits. Members talk for days about horse-racing, but a proposal for supplying houses for thousands of houseless people is turned down without giving Parliament an opportunity of expressing an opinion upon it. Should it not be rather made clear to people

that even internationalism i.s 'increasing by leaps and bounds simply recause the loyalty and patriotism or the populace has been time and again so outrageously exploited? To offend the instincts of loyalty and patriotism, to exploit the individual's preference' for the source of his origin is to commence to create an estrangement between that individual and his home, and his country. So it is with members of a political parry; their sense of what is decorous ana just will not bear up under consianr. insult; the time comes when they finallv break away and "shake off trie chains by wheih their intelligences were Tieing shackled, and new parties come into being, and old parties rise and fall.' Disintegration of parties in the present. Parliament has visibly set in; Mr McCallum, member for Wairau. speaking in Auckland, nas disclosed that Members of the Reform Party have joined with members o? the Liberal Party, with Independents and moderate Labour in the House, and have formed the nucleus of a new party presumably a liboral-cum-labour party with a policy that will, as closely as practicable, be •on tne line.? of that founded by the late Hon. John Ballance. and afterwards carried, through by the' great democratic. R. J. Seddon. Why it should be left' To Mr McCallum to launch the new party on the public it is difficult to understand, for few Members have made it so obvious that self-interest and self-gratification are at the base of very much of what they have done in the House, than Mr McCallum. However, it may be that Mr McCallum has been unfortunate in creating appearances, and time may prove there were no real grounds for misconception. The fact remains that Mr McCallum has stated publicly that a new party in Parliament has been fonnecr, and he has also made public tne names of the Members constituting that party. It is early :in the day to commence criticising the statements of the mouth-piece of the new parry, ibut in them is discovered the same old political cloven hoof. Mr McCallum has stated, if reported fairly, that, "each. Member of the new party, he fully believed, was 'imbued wltn the feeling and inspiration that It was his high duty during the time of the rehabilitation of the country following upon the war period, to suspend patty wrangling and -political bitterness, as well as personal self-seeking of every kind; to raise public life to a higher standard than ever before}" There is grave doubt whether any Member of Parliament who has any personal self-seeking of any kind, fo suspend can, heigh presto, lay claim to a clean desire to raise public life to a higher standard of virtue. It may also be questioned, if not positively declared, that the new party has in its membership some whose honour it is impossible to besmirch, or doubt. Mr McCallum most probably did not mean what he said; It is one thing to construct fine sentences Jn office quietude, in straining after effect, and quite another when "bunkered" by a newspaper interviewer It i& virtually impossible to even conceive that Dr Newman was Wittingly guilty of a questionable acr. At the same time it is very obvious* that personal self-interest is the guiding principle of some Members, or the statement would not have so readily ambled out of Mr McCallum'» coin*. The significant feature of Mr McCallum 's outburst is, howover, the evidence it furnishes of the state of Incompatibility now fairly generar amongst Members of the present Parliament at a time when the leader o f the Government should have strained every effort in building up a united and determined force aigalnst thoSie who would plunge the country into revolution; a force that would have rapidly removed the disabilities tnat are responsible for driving the masses into the arms of extremist*