The Daily News. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1912. THE OPPOSITION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 100, 13 September 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1912. THE OPPOSITION.

"A dismantled and disgruntled Opposition," is the eiegant way in which the late Government has heen described by at least one of the organs of the lleforui Party, and we are not at all sure that the title has not been earned. The political situation has never been more curiously mixed than it is at the moment, and its evolution has been almost eatacylsmic. The present Government was sent into office purely through the graces of a few discontented Liberals, who probably imagined that their votes were simply lent for a few days and that the opportunity would speedily arrive when they could re-sell them for the price of a re-organisation of the Litaral Government. Unfortunately for them, the new Administration, while cheerfully accepting the votes of the malcontents at the same time adopted most of its platform, and it now stands really as the new Liberal Party. As a simple matter of fact, the Conservative Party has thrown overboard the whole of its professions of the past, lock, .stock and barrel, and, having jettisoned the extreme Radical Party, has gathered into its fold a sufficient number of the Liberal Party proper to secure it a fixity of tenure. This leaves us faced witli the fact that we are living under a new administration with an old policy. Thcfre is nothing to be seriously alarmed at in this so far as the country is concerned, for the new men are, in theory, at any rate, quite as progressive as their predecessors. Provided that they practice what the;* preach with any degree of enthusiasm, the community will be quite willing to endorse the Shakespearean "What's in « name?

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." But tho Opposition will hardly be found concurring with this estimate. It has been "pushed through the window" so peremptorily that it has not yet had time to marshal its scattered senses, and in its aimuemeut at the chaotic reverse that faces it, it, has not even been able to find a leader. Ab a, matter of. fact, the party i» paying the penalty of a long period of blunders committed during the year prior to the General Election, blunders committed half unconsciously through a spirit of overeonfidenee bred of an historically long tenure of office. The lack of an individual leader is not necessarily fatal to united and effective enterprise, though it is, to say the leant, a suggestive circumstance; hut when the nmnagemen! of policy and tactics wen; handed over to a committee which did not include Sir Joseph Yv'ard or Mr. Myers or Mr. Lauicn-on or Mr. Wilford. the precarious nature of lh(. situation became quite obvious. Tile position simply .spells "sixes and sevens." There is nothing to complain of in Mr. Wilford's announcement of an "indepcnduit allegiance" to ih" Reform Pan - -.-, nor is Mr. Myers, him-If an "x-MinHer. to be blamed for transferring his affection,- from theChloe

of Liberalism to the Amaryllis of Reform. [Nor is it surprising to find Sir Joseph Ward, like Brer Fox, "lying low and sayin' nuffin'," until lie can ascertain how the cat will jump. This really leaves Mr. Cf. W. Russell as the selfconstituted leader of the Opposition. Mr, Russell is a disappointed man. He has sought for office for many years, steering a somewhat precarious political course, and when ultimately he committed himself to a definite policy and reached the haven of office, it was only to have the sweets snatched from his lips after the briefest of experience. In his assumed leadership he is now displaying a quite unnccesasry bitterness of criticism, and this not unnaturally suggests that his ability as an administrator might not have justified in fruition its early promise. The position as it now stands, as a contemporary has put it, is that the permanency of the readjustments will chiefly depend upon the ability and willingness of the Government to make good its progressive professions in sustained practice. • The ultimate development may possibly take the form of a more comprehensive Liberal party on the one hand and a coalescence of Radicalism and Labor on the other; though such considerations are perhaps premature at the present moment. Whatever the future may have in store, nothing can spoil or minimise the record of the, good, great work accomplished by the Liberal Party under Mr. Seddon and Sir Joseph Ward. We should, however, like to see the Opposition emerge from its present incoherent state into a more stable and organised form, for in the event of the Rewrm Party failing to fulfil the obligations to which it is now committed there will be a necessity ,for a strongly-organised party to assume the reins of office. That party cannot come from the Opposition in its present condition as "a house divided against itself."