The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 1912. THE SESSION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 86, 28 August 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 1912. THE SESSION.

There is an old English proverb that says: "Many a donkey stands in the meadow looking wistfully out upon the common," We'do not for one moment intend to suggest that Mr. Massey has anything in kind with the common or garden ass, but even he will probably admit that his call to office has not let him into the anticipated garden of roses. Destructive criticism -is always much easier than creative administration, and his task as Leader of the Opposition was infinitely easier than his carrying of the burden of head of the Government. Apart from the fact that lie is faced with the problem of propounding a policy he has to undertake-the immensely difficult task of squaring his new proposals with his old professions. The man who consistently denounced borrowing intends to go upon the money market for a mild million and three-quarters. The man who objected to the linkedrsweet-liess-long-drav.n-out of the Financial Debate has had to sit quietly and listen to his own party helping to protract the debate to its customary unnecessary length. Already several weeks have been wasted, and the Government Ls faced with a long programme of routine work which is certain to provoke interminable discussion. There are signs that the disintegrated Opposition is about to make an effort to place its house in order, and evolve some sort of effective organisation out of the chaos which has so far prevailed. This means, of course, that the Government's policy measures will be subjected to exhaustive criticism, which is likely to be more strenuous from the mere fact that the Opposition is armed at all points with detailed depart mental knowledge of the most thorough character. This simply means that the noble professions that Mr. Massey and his colleagues were in the habit of making when they were sheltering like so many lotus eaters in the cool shades of opposition, that once they were in power there would be short and businesslike.sessions, are doomed to be well lost in the. busli of elusive verbosity. If present indications count for anything, we shall see a long session of late hours, and we shall have the old system still in vogur »f a loafing segKsn cono'-mn™

with' a. hurried political sprint home/ .about November. Probably tlic Govern- ' ' mont will have less to say in future of S legislation by exhaustion, for Mr. Mas'- j pr- has' stated plainly and emphatically '. that he intends to put his policy mea- - suits through, whatever the opposition. ' It is, a brave statement, but the pohsibility of its performance lies in tlie lap of the gods, and at present that particu- ; lar lap does not seem too comfortable '

a one. VC& do not anticipate the defeat of the Government during the session, but it is quite .certain that it will have to run the gauntlet of some very drastic criticism. Circumstances invariably alter cases, and there appears to be very little difference in the procedure ■which Mr. Massey has to face compared "with that

which he has so persistently had to condemn in the past. The well-known political precedents' of the last twenty years will probivbly assert themselves again, and Mr Massey will, therefore, have to materially revise his attitude of the past, and incidentally lay himself open to a good deal' of haunting by the ghosts of other days. We are afraid that his dead past will not be allowed to bury its past.