PARTY SQUABBLES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 207, 29 February 1912, Page 2

PARTY SQUABBLES.

To the Editor. Sir, —If ever there was an object lesson in favor of the elective executive, we have had it given to us during the last few days by what has been taking place in Parliament. Here we have*; had an unruly wrangle over what is simply the ins and outs—nothing more, nothing less. There is no great political question at issue; but only one set fighting all they know to get the other lot out of the way, so that they can take their places and draw their salaries. It) must be this, aa the Reform Party tell j us plainly they have no intention of re-! pealing the legislation passed by the Lib- j eral Party; and the country has to look I on and grin and bear it, simply because 1 we have not got the sense and the pluck to cast party away and run our legin- , lature on its merits and not for party and personal purposes. If New Zealand had an elective executive system, when Parliament met the executive would have been chosen from those the House • considered best fitted for the various J positions, and the business of the ooun- i try would have gone on smoothly, as there would have been no question of I Liberal and Conservative, as nothing but i Liberal measures would ever have a hope • of seeing daylight, simply because the country would not tolerate anything else. Thoße members who showed an inclination lor standstill or retrograde legislation would be given short notice to quit, as our elections would be run on the merits and capabilities of the individual and not on his being a good or bad party man. The whole business would be funnier than a comic opera if it were not for the fact that it is no laughing matter for us to have to pay a lot of men to go to Wellington and behave worse than a lot of schoolboys, and I maintain that the action of soma of the would-be leaders of the House ,in allowing themselves' to be fooled the way they have been, is nothing less than childish. —I am, etc., W. A. COLLIS.