FATUOUS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 80, 21 August 1912, Page 5

FATUOUS.

FREEHOLD v. LEASEHOLD. By Telegraph—Own Correspondent. Wellington, Last Night. It is difficult .to imagine that any member of any party could have conceived in the wildest flights of his imagination a more fatuous, a more absurd, resolution than that with which Mr. Craigie, member for Timaru, essayed the difficult task of arresting the progress of the Budget debate, and at the same time assuring his constituents that he is true to his leasehold convictions. The fact that he was so palpably turned down by leading members of his party goes to show, if any proof was wanted, that the disorganised condition of the Opposition has reached a stage that can only be characterised as chaotic. Mr. Craigie proposed an amendment which, under certain conditions, would be, but is not, a want-of-confidence motion. Mr. Wilford, a potential leader of the Opposition, says they don't care twopence about tenure; what they want is settlement. Mr. G. W. Russell another potential leader of the Opposition, is not so bold on the subject, and is taken to task by Mr. Davey and the members of the Opposition on account of his elusiveness when faced with the necessity of enrolling himself with a party having a definite policy on the subject of tenure. The mere fact that Mr. Craigie's motion was passed out by 52 votes to 14 shows how seriously the House regarded the issue, and what degree of importance it attached to the cliallenge thrown down by the member for Timaru. The point, however, of the division is not found there. The whole incident goes to show that the leadorlcss and disintegrated Opposition iias, to use a colloquialism, gone to pieces. However much Mr. Craigie or Mr. Laurcnson, or Mr. Anvbodyclse, may oesire to throw themselves into the deadly breach of leasehold, they should ! iiavc realised that success in party warfare can only he attained by solidarity, that the slightest sign of disruption is sufficient to bring up against them all the opposing forces with a strength increased tenfold by reason merely of that disruption, and that the only means to ultimate success is a combined and impenetrable front, agreed as a whole to the plan of campaign, however they may differ in opinion as to details. If the Opposition would, for one moment, look hack and see the means by which the exOpposition gained the Treasury benches, tjiey would go in for different tactics. For twenty-one years tl e opponents of Mr. Ballanee and Mr. Seddon and Sir Joseph Ward said, and they kept on saying, one thing and one thing only: "You are wrong." In season and out of season they kept on repeating the same tune. The various Governments said that the cry would soon become outworn, but the result proved that only by insistence can you persuade, and the end justified the means. Now the Massey Government is in power by virtue of a vote of members which is undeniable, and the disorganised Opposition gives proof of its utter disorganisation by allowing an unauthorised private member to move what would otherwise he a motion of want of confidence on the land question, but, which, withtmt the imprimatur of the Leader of the Opposition, who does not exist, is laughed to scorn by the Leader of the Government. Surely" fatuity could no further go.