LOYALTY FIRST.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 October 1918, Page 6

LOYALTY FIRST.

To the Editor. Sir, I desire to compliment you on ' your attitude with respect to the war in Europe generally, and also with re- ' spect to the phase of it that presents itself to the people of this electorate in the contest now to be decided. The : loyalty of the individual and of the body of the electors is to be put to the j crucial test of declaring to the world at \ large whether we are or are not loyal. ' Loyal to what? Loyalto the great, ! grand noble Imperialism of the glorious i British Empire—that which has made ' us and keeps us great as a people and ' as a nation. Mr Massey and Sir Joseph ' Ward have proved themselves worthy of all the honor that we in this country and the people of the Homeland can shower upon them. The reason for this is obvious to all hut the petty minded. Mr Massey and Sir Joseph Ward were, from the positions they occupied at the outbreak of the war, compelled to be either political heroes : or petty minded humbugs, or a mixture of the two. Well, now, how did they aet? They acted nobly, wisely, and right up to the height of fearless, trustworthy and splendid men, in the greatest crisis that ever befell the world in which we live. These two : men are a credit to New Zealand, and a credit to human nature, as it exists on the face of the earth to-day. No two men that we had any claim on could have done better than our two < leading statesmen have done and are doing. There is nc exaggeration in all this, hut a plain unvarnished statement of facts that ought to be patent i to every loyal subject in this favored land. And yet we have Mr S. Smith, ■ who has spent his entire working life in the station yard at New Plymouth, going around the electorate spouting smiling-faced venom by the hour on them and on all that they have done and are! Nor is Mr Smith unsupported in his candidature, for, behold, ye! All the Sir Hardies, Paddy Webbs, Bolsheviks, the grab-what-we-cans, - the petty-minded, the weak, the discontent-' ed and "the little Englanders,",are all crowding about him and protesting that "Mr Smith is a fit and proper person to represent them in Parliament!" Perhaps in that they are right; but it is up to every loyal man and woman in the electorate to make a point of blocking them at the poll on Thursday next.— I am, etc., J. 0. TAYLOR, Lepperton, 7th October, 1918.