AN INTERESTING DISCLOSURE

Taranaki Daily News, 6 December 1919, Page 3

AN INTERESTING DISCLOSURE

HOW CONSERVATISM RUNS "REFORM." SIR WALTER BUCHANAN EMERGES! (Published as an Advertisement). The following interesting article appeared in a recent issue of the Auckland Star. It is to be hoped that the public will give it careful attention as it throws an instructive light upon the very intimate relations always suspected, but persistently repudiated or denied, that exists between the "Reform" party and the Conservative landed aristocracy, of whom Sir Walter Buchanan is a leading member: — THE POWER BEHIND THE THRONE. It is to be hoped that the electors everywhere, not only in this constituency, but throughout ithe Dominion, will pay careful attention to the facts which Mr. Mathesou (Independent Reform Candidate for the Mastertou seait/ made public last Friday night. Addressing a political meeting at Masteriuu, Mr. Matheson explained at length how his attempt to stand for Parliament there had brought him into conflict with the Masseyite "Power behind the Throne," and he proceeded to disclose tile precise position in which the "Reform" party stands in regard to Sir Walter Buchanan. This gentleman evidently exercises practically sovereign authority over the party, so far as the selection of its candidates is concerned, and when for any given reason a politician wishing to stand for Parliament in vue "Reform" interest fails to come up to Sir Walter Buchanan's test of fitness or cannot "pass muster" under his eagle eye, that candidate must cither withdraw or go to the poll with the full knowledge that the party vote una the party organisatiop will be used to support some more acceptable mouthpiece of Conservatism. In this case, Mr. Matheson had announced his candidature some considerable time before the sitting member, Mr. Sykes, came into the field; and he refused to accept Sir Walter Buchanan's request—perhaps we should say "command"—to stand aside because, as he told his audience, he objects to dictation of that sort and also because he considers that there is far too much of the caucus and the "machine" about "Reform" politics, and on his own confession he wants something "cleaner and more democratic." If Mr. Matheson is out for clean and democratic methods of government, we tail to see why he does not support Liberalism which can supply him with both these requisites. But that, after all, i» ,ietween Mr. Matheson and his own conscience, nnd what we are chiefly interested in just now is the part that Sir Walter Buchanan is evidently filling, not on the political stage, but behind the scones, for the benefit of the Masseyitea. Perhaps we had better remark here and now. that nothing we have to say is intended to reflect invidiously on the character or conduct of S'i Walter Buchanan. He is no doubt quite an estimable person, but his public record hardly suggests that he would be adopted by the people of New Zealand, with their full knowledge and consent as the controller of their destinies. Sir Walter Buchanan is known by repute to most people in this country, as a man of wealth, a big land-holder, and ore of the strongest financial supporters nf xisat Wellington "Reform" organ which has rendered itself notorious for vears past by its frantic abuse of the Liberal party and its leader, and to those wno tiuce any interest in our political history ne is familiar as one of the most resolute and obstinate opponents of Liberalism and all its works, one of the few survivors of that clique of bisoted and reactionary Conservatives who so strenuously resisted the democratic policy of Ballance and Seddon and Ward a quarter of a century ago. To Sir Walter Buchanan and the men who shared his political creed in those days, Old Age Pensions. Land for Settlement, Democratic Suffrage, Democratic Administration anything and everything that Liberalise imported into our national and political life were alike revolutionary, outraf»ous and detestable. What Sir Walter' himself thought and stud about these matters is recorded at length in "Hansard"; and all that we need say about this side of the question now is that a man of Sir Walter's age and temperament and political antecedents is tolerably certain to be not less but more Conservative and reactionary to-day than he showed himself to be a generation ago.

Now, this is the man to whom Mr. Massey and his friends hare delegated the task of selecting their candidates; and what we wish particularly to stress for >the benefit of our readers is this, that if Mr/Massey and his party win the victory in this present contest, it is to Sir Walter Buchanan and the small but influential group of Conservative Inndowncrs, who look up to him as their guide and leader, that the fate and future -of New Zealand are to be entrusted. For it is manifest that if Sir Walter Buchanan is allowed to decide what candidate shall or shall not stand for "Reform" in a given constituency, he is literally dictating and prescribing the policy which the Masseyites are prepared to support. For we should not imagine that Sir Walter would select a "Reform" candidate who did not profess the "Reform" creed, and we would not accuse Mr. Massey of keeping <me type of "Reform" for the Wairarapa and another for the rest of the Dominion. Thus the triumph of Masseyism will mpan the subordination of all our political and economic and industrial and social and national requirements and aspirations to the prejudices of a highly Conservative old gentleman, whom the electors have refused to send to Parliament, and whose only claim to be accepted as the supreme arbiter of our destinies is that he is regarded by his own friends as "the political Godfather of Reform in >the Wairarapa," We do not think that these facts require muoh elaboration; in fact they seem to us almost to defy comment. But we must draw one obvious moral, by pointing to the marvellous discrepancy between the picture of '"Reform" policy thus revealed to our gaze and the claims and assertions of the "Reformers." Nothing seems to exasperate Mr. Massey or the average Masseyite more effectually than the suggestion that he and his party are dominated and controlled by the "Squato-oraey,"-the great land-holding interests that Mr. Massey has so long and loyally protected. Yet here is proof positive on the authority of a well-known member of. the "Reform" party that "Reform" policy is, as we have said, dictated by the "Uncrowned King" of onr Conservative landed aristocracy. And this is the "democracy" that "Reform" in a recent picturesque but pathetic advertisement implores the electors to love and cherish! The people of New Zealand Trill giv« their answer »t th» poll*.