POLITICAL FACTOTUMS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8990, 27 November 1907, Page 4

POLITICAL FACTOTUMS.

When the strongest Ministerial organ in the dominion —a journal in which the head of the Government admittedly has a pecuniary interestsets out to defend or laud the Administration, it may be taken for granted that it does not do so with the disapprobation of those whom it would seek to uphold. Reviewing the work of the session, the "New Zealand Times"— journal to wl.i-'h we are alluding—contains the following pregnant passage : —"The masterful manner of the late Mr Seddon is not that of the present Premier, and were not wanting prophets to predicj: that, missing the strong hand upon the reins, the restive Liberal team would kick over the traces, or bolt, or play a little of both games. As a matter of fact, Sir Joseph Ward has known how to make them put their necks to the collar to some purpose, and that without any great application ot the whip, by merely showing that he meant to get things done, or else know the reason why." This may be accepted as a candid exposition of the methods of the Government, and that being so, it has to be assumed that a large body of men elected'to conserve the interests of the dominion are content to become mere political factotums to the head of the Ministry. The prophet who predicted that members "missing the strong hand [of the late Mr Seddon] upon the reins" would "kick over the traces, or bolt, or play a little of both games".must be supposed to have still had some faith in human nature, and to have believed that members of the present Parliament were not altogether devoid of conscience-—in a political sense. The prophets evidently were wrong, because a majority of merhbers have bowed down to another Baal weaker than the idol previously worshipped.' Although it is pretty well understood that a large percentage of members possess no personal independence in the political arena, there is something repulsively cynical in the statement in cold print in a Government paper that "Sir Joseph Ward has known how to make them put their necks to the collar to some purpose ... by merely showing that he meant to get things done, or else know the reason why." Men of honesty of purpose and independence of spirit would rather retire into private life and rest in the consciousness of their own integrity, than submit to the subjugation of any leader who sought to fetter them with the chains of dependence and servility. Before that, however, they would turn upon the oppressor, and, if possible, unseat him. How long will the electors tolerate such a condition of degration in the political life of the dominion?