THE FLAG OF TRUCE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 140, 22 September 1910, Page 4

THE FLAG OF TRUCE.

Reading political news the average person must come to the conclusion that the Opposition member views the Government supporter with the utmost malevolence and that the Premier would pass Mr. Massey in the street with a haughty stare. As a matter of fact, the average politician of any color is quite as likely to dine with a Tory as a Liberal, and, once outside the House, buries ■the hatchet. The other night the Premier and his implacable political enemy (and very good friend), Mr. Massey, went to the Yorkshire Society's dinner together and forgot to call encli other names. The Premier said New Zealand was the finest country in the world, and Mr. Massey did not remember that Sir Joseph was ruining it, or that the Government was driving capital out of the country, or that the land tax was a curse, or anything. Mr. Masse}' said, in fact, that the country was as good a country as Sir Joseph Ward had previously declared it to be, that instead of one million people it ought to have ten millions, and that he was very proud of this little chunk of earth. In fact, Mr. Massey the man is a much more likable person than Mr. Massey the politician, an<} Sir Joseph Ward, the New Zealander, is just as excellent a. person in that capacity as in his highly official and decorative one. It is rather a pity that politicians cannot get out of their armor sometimes and forget the bickerings and the fights. Some of the wordy fights in Parliament remind one a good deal of. the Johnson-Jeffries battle. Politicians hav6 to put up some kind of a quarrel for pictorial purposes. It is rather a pity, though, that they should wait until they get outside the House and away from politics before they say anything that counts. °