"A POLITICAL PLOT."

Taranaki Daily News, 14 September 1916, Page 3

"A POLITICAL PLOT."

"JJETFAYAL OF LIBERALISM.'' (From Our Own Correspondent.) Wellington, September 11. TJie.sc ire the startling heart-lines under which the New Zealand Times presents to its readers a story of a shameless conspiracy among the members of tlif Cabinet ito betray Liberalism "body and soul to its hereditary enemies" anil to instal the Reformers firmly in ollice after the war under the leadership of Mr, Massey. The story begins with an allusion to the downfall of the "first really Liberal Ministry, under the leadership of Sir George Ctcy," which it attributes "to the ratting of four Auckland members of the party who gave their votes to the Conservatives in exchange for a grant of .C4ft,(loo for roads and bridges in the Xortli and other political considerations," and proceeds to trace, stage by stage, the progress of the -still greater party perfidy which is, it declares, rampant in these days. The "'National Cabinet," it says in effect, was engineered by Mr. Massey and his friends to save their party and themselves from extinction and ever since has been employed to magnify Reform above Liberalism and to defeat the democratic, aspirations of a liberty loVing people. The Liberals in the Cabinet, it seems, are ready to submit to any indignity so long as their seats and t'iieir salaries (ire secure, and only two of them remain faithful to their former political professions. Now, as the culminating step in the conspiracy, Sir Joseph Ward is to be established in a high office at Home, Mr. Herdman is to be made a judge, and the remaining ten Ministers, all on full salaries, are to be entrenched behind a solid phalanx of Mn.sseyites and Wardites, calling thentselves Liberals, safe from all the malign forces of Labor and Socialism.

•THE CONSPIRATORS. That, briefly, is the story told, apparently in sober earnestness, by the local exponent of Liberalism. It is embellished, of course, with many details of a personal character, 110 more flattering to one side than they are to the other, but these need not be repeated here. Perhaps the most effective answer to the whole ridiculous concoction is the amusement it has occasioned to Ministers themselves. Mr. Allen, who is not blessed with a very acute sense of humor, regards the story as a joke—"a poor one," he confesses, but he has seen worse in the same place. Dr. McXab laughs at it outright. "I don't see what I am going to get out of the arrangement," he says, "and absence of motivo must be aoecptcd as prima facie evidence of my innocence." Other Ministers when told the story protest they .have no time to worry about Such nonsense. 51 r. Mac Donald thinks lie must be one of the steadfast members of the | Cabinet who are holding on to their former convictions and on that account ,has not been approached by the conspirators. "But jesting aside," he adds, "it's very deplorable that we should have stuff of this sort thrown at us just now. We ean laugh at it here, but I suppose stray copies of this paper get to other countries and give tile people there the idea that we are a paqk of political brigands" This practically is the attitude of all the Ministers. They smile at the suggestion that they are plotting against the political liberties of the country, but they resent such a suggestion being made at a time when the individuals principally concerned are unable to deal with it themselves. '

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE MATTER.

But after all the publication of the story will do good rather than harm if it serves to remind the public of the circumstances connected with the formation of the National Cabinet. It may be quite true that Mr. Massey welcomed the party truce, even 011 Sir Joseph Ward's own terms, as a means of saving himself and his friends, "but no politician need be ashamed of having accepted an honorable compromise in preference to an inevitable defeat. Being in the arrangement with the approval of their respective followers it became the duty of the party leaders to observe it to the best of their ability, without counting how it was going to profit this side or that. Their present critic does not scruple to distort the most obvious facts in order to make it appear they are proving unfaithful to their trust. He says, for instance, referring to Mr. Massey, that he is taking "all kinds of care" to ensure, that the measure "applying the principle of the referendum" to the Legislative Council though placed 011 the Statute Book is not allowed to come into operation. As a matter of fact there is no measure on the Statute Book or anywhere else applying the principle of the referendum to the Coun"cil, but doubtless this delightfully irresponsible person intends to refer to the measure which made the Chamber elective, and the operation of this, as everyone ougjit, to know, was suspended on the express demand of the Liberal Party at the time the ''party truce" was ratified'. It -would be possible to bring charges against the Prime Minister which could not be so easily rejected as 'this one can be, but to depict tliem as betraying their party to its hereditary enemies implies a liuieh graver charge against Sir Joseph Ward and his colleagues than it does against Mr., Massey and the rest of their political opponents. A SCRAP OF PAPER.

Perhaps the allusion to the downfall of the first Liberal Ministry in 1870 with which this strange story opens might have been pardonable a quarter of a century ago, when party feeling ran high and the facts of this historical incident were not generally known. But at this time of day, when the truth is open for everyone to read, to stigmatise Mr. William Swanson and his three Auckland colleagues as "rats" who sold their party for a paltry grant of £40,000 to their district and "other political considerations" is an infamous aspersion upon the memory of these high-spirited pioneers of Liberalism. The downfall of the first Liberal Ministry was not due to anything these gentlemen did, or left undone, but to the temperamental inability of its great leader to retain the assistance of colleagues, such as Mr. Ballance and Sir Robert Stout, who wished to restrain his more extravagant impulses and who would have saved him from the catastrophe ivhich overtook liini at the polls when he appealed to the country from a lio-confidence vote in the House. The negotiations between Sir John Hall, the new Premier, and the four Auckland members are now a familiar story. They resulted in Sir John and his colleagues being pledged to the "Liberal measures,'' manhood suffrage and triennial Parliaments among them, and in these measures beinp placed upon the Statute Book. Mr. Swanson and his colleagues had been returned to the House p.s supporters . Sir George Grey and 1-J the "Libera' .easures," but when fit George dec):'; ... to take the leader- ,

ship of the new Opposition after the election they deemed it better to secure tlic passage of the measures by giving their support to the party in power rather than to join in the intrigues over the leadership which were proceeding 0 u their own side of the House. The agreement did not provide for a grant of r id,ooo to •tiie Auckland district, bu f l'or a "proportionate share of public expenditure" going to that province, and it expressly stipulated that no personal advantage should be ollered to the members concerned in the arrangement.