WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 May 1922, Page 5

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

THE LABOR CAMPAIGN. AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT. (Special Correspondent.) Wellington, May 19. The fervid denunciation of the Reform Government which Mr. H. E. Holland, the chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, pronounced in the Wellington Town Hall on Wednesday night was addressed by an audience consisting mainly of sympathisers with the speaker’s views, and consequently it received a very emphatic endorsement. Mr. Holland did not mince matters. At the very outset he found an opportunity, in acknowledging the music provided by the Waterside Workers’ Band for the occasion, to declare the present Government the very worst Government any Australasian country ever had seen, and to express a hope it would be the early privilege of the Waterside Band to play Mr. Massey and his colleagues out of office. This sort of talk may not impress the average elector, but it makes an irresistible appeal to the disgruntled workers and so leads Mr. Holland into saying too much about the crimes of his political opponents and too little about the road by which he and - his friends would reach the administrative millennium. ELECTORAL REFORM. The least indefinite statement made by Mr. Hollond in regard to the intentions of his party had to do with electoralreform. His failure to be quite clear even here seemeu co be due to the fact that he had made only a superficial study of the subject. He described the second ballot as a poor alternative to proportional representation, because, as he said, it would enable minorities by combining to defeat majorities. But obviously no minority at the i second ballot could defeat a majority till it converted itself into a majority. It does not follow by any means that a return to the second ballot would be a desirable step, but there is another alternative to proportional representation in preferential voting, the system embodied in the late Mr. McNab’s Absolute Majority Bill of wnxeh Mr. Holland apparently has heard nothing. By preferential voting the elector would complete his part of the business at the one ballot and there would be ho further opportunities for the parties to conspire against one onpt her.

DIVIDED FORCES.

But without questioning Mr. Holland’s sincerity in advocating proportional representation as the only truly democratic method of expressing popular opinion, one may doubt if he and his friends always have been consistent in their efforts towards the achievement of this goal. Aney and their followers at the last general election constituted a minority ! df the opponents of the Government —a very substantial minority it is true— a nd yet they showed no disposition at all to co-operate with the other progressive forces in securing some approach to proportional representation through an inadequate system of voting. They at least must share with the Liberals the responsibility of having put nearly a score of their opponents into Parliament through mutual -bickering and vote-splitting. Mr. Massey may well say that parties unable to manage their own affairs better than this are giving poor earnest of their ability to manage the affairs of the country. Whether or not the two parties are approaching this year’s election with any better understanding mere spectators do not know, but without it the same result is inevitable.

THE LABOR DESTINY. Mr. Holland’s tribute to the two great Liberal leaders, whose work, he claimed, the Labor Party was seeking to carry on, was warmly applauded by his audience, which accepted the right of succession as a matter of course. Ballance and Seddon, he said, had laid broad and strong the foundations on which a truly democratic State could have been built up. But the lesser Liberals had not dared to move forward, and through their weakness and their fear the Massey party had slipped into office, and now the Labor Party remained as the only possible saviour of the country. What John Ballance ana Richard Seddon have thought of all this even their intimate friends can only conjecture; but Mr. Massey cer-

the impending election decided on the assumptions Mr. Holland puts forth. Meanwhile Mr. Holland would discoaa aspirations rather than politics, amd it is easy to understand Ills preference; but in these severely practical days the useful politician will come down from the skies and deal with the facta as they exist on this mundane sphere.