The Daily News. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1912. "GO TO THE DEVIL!"

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 108, 23 September 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1912. "GO TO THE DEVIL!"

;Mr. Wilford was at least emphatic, if not elegant, when he remarked in the House last week that what the country wanted was a Ministry with sufficient moral courage to tell some people to "go to the devil!" This is, of course, picturesquely incisive, if. not exactly epigrammatic, hut we are disposed to believe that the member for the Hutt, who is always commendably frank, has hit upon a truth He might Have announced his conviction a little less luridly, but, .classed in the category of "things one would rather have expressed differently," he seems to have happened upon a flaw in our administration. Politics have reached a very quaint stage in New Zealand just now, and, with a wobbly majority that may at any time become a minority, the Government is -finding it increasingly difficult to say "No" with any degree of emphasis. Mr. Seddon, with his substantial Parliamentary backing, and Sir Joseph Ward, in a lesser degree, could turn down undesirable deputations with some amount of confidence, but Mr. Massey is obliged, in the interests of his retention of office, to sail a great deal closer to the .wind. He has already shown that his policy is one of "keeping the matter steadily in view." There is no suggestion that the loader of the Reform Party is less earnest or less courageous than his predecessors were, but he is evidently aiming at being suave and conciliatory rather than firm and decisive where deputations from the various constituencies are concerned. As a matter of fact, he has been distinctly procrastinative since ho and his party assumed office. The number of questions *»e has reserved for consideration during the recess must represent many years of anxious thought and strenuous work. "The truth of the matter," according to the Lyttelton Times, "is that the head of the Government is very much like his humblest supporter in having Ids candour restrained by our present system of election. He is dependent upon the goodwill of small constituencies, which are always extremely local in politics, and he must never say 'No' with the abruptness which Mr. Wilford commends." But a gospel of this sort will hardly commend itself to the country. Ministers and members ought surely to be above a petty consideration of this sort. They are not elected by the constituencies to represent themselves, but to represent the electorates, and it is a weak and spineless attitude to adopt a. policy of "trimming" when requests are made that are either improper or involve an unnecessary expenditure of public money. We are quite sure that the country would prefer Tennyson's "still, strong man —aristocrat, autocrat, democrat—one who can rule and dare not lie," to the administrator who places the retention of office before his obvious duty to his constituents. The curse of parochialism is written largo

over oui' politics, and there are probably not half-a-doKen men in the House , who, considering their individual interests, would be game to tell anybody to go either "to the devil" or to interview some less striking personality. This timidity of policy is not convincing, and when Mr, Massey is approached with a request by the electors of Little Wantenrbadly with a request for a railway to the moon, or a suggestion from the village of Outer Darkness for a Government subsidy towards a scheme for making sunbeam's from cucumbers, lie would earn much more kudos by giving a bald and assertive "No" than by promising that "the matter will be considered when the Estimates are being framed." The Times finds a solution of the difficulty in the adoption of a system of proportional representation, which would eliminate the element of parochialism But the position should not require any abstruse solution. If "the devil" is the proper place to which to commit any deputation, Ministers should have sufficient moral courage to say so, frankly and unequal ifiedly, even if the result is that tliey have to take the trip themselves. There is far too much obsequious pandering to littleness in our political system, and it is quite up to some firm leader df men to put his foot clown upon it with a dull, heavy thud.