LIBERALISM

Taranaki Daily News, 13 September 1922, Page 5

LIBERALISM

ITS AIMS AND PRINCIPLES. “GOOD ENOUGH FOR REFORM PARTY.” (By Wire—Parliamentary Reporter.) Wellington. Last Night. “It is good enough for the Reform Party and I am quite willing to adopt it,” said the Prime Minister in the House to-day when he was asked if he had read a 'statement of “the principles of Liberalism” from the pen of Sir John Findlay. Mr. G. Witty (Riccarton) asked a question on the subject on behalf of Mr. R. McCallum (Whirau). The member wanted to know if the Prime Minister had read the statement made by Sir John Findlay in an opposition newspaper. and if the Prime Minister would “cordially support and carry into effect the principles referred to.” “I read the article by Sir John Findlay with a very great deal of interest,” said Mr. Massev. “I can only say that I believe it is the best definition of Liberalism T have ever come across, and I can further say that I concur in every clause expressed by Sir John Findlay. It provides for freedom for each man to make the best use of the energy and facilities with which nature has endowed him. These are the points that struck me in reading the statemenu freedom for individual effort. Government encouragement to honest effort in {the field, workshop and commerce, and no countenance- to monopolies, exploitation of the public or individual or collective go-slowism. It stands for the competent landless, capital for the small man who can use it prudently, and educational training for all who desire to take advantage of it; it stands for law and order, and that each will receive the reward of his labor; it stands for eauality of opportunity, so that invidious bars of birth and station will be no handican to anyone who desires to improve his position and become more useful to hia fellow men; by implication it stands for progress, industrial, commercial and financial, both in our own country and in the Empire as a whole, and consequently it has my hearty support. There is just one addition I would like to add to it the golden rule ‘do unto others as you would that others should do unto you.’ It is good enough for the Reform Party, and I am quite prepared to adopt it,” ;aid Mr. Massey emphatically when a Labor member interjected that the policy consisted of “platitudes.”