Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, JANUARY 17, 1911. AN "INDIA-RUBBER PREMIER."

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10139, 17 January 1911, Page 4

Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, JANUARY 17, 1911. AN "INDIA-RUBBER PREMIER."

Mr A. R. Barclay, ex-M.P., of Dunedin, is a candid critic. As a politician he was not conspicuously brilliant, for he lacked those qualities the absence of which he laments in others. His outspokenness at the'time of the Boer War probably cost him his political life.' It is interesting to know, however, what he thinks of the party with which he was once identified. In a recent Speech he exposed the hollowness, the sham and the make-believe of -the modern Liberal'. He was particularly severe upon thqse who signed a document after the recent display in the House, recognising the "statesmanlike manner" in which Sir Joseph Ward had led the country since the Prime Ministership devolved upon him. Mr Barclay concluded a trenchant criticism as follows:—-"The curse of Reuben is upon thfr Ward Cabinet. Unstable as water, they cannot excel. TEere is no Statesmanship—only a

trimming of sails to every breeze that blows. Few can honestly deny that the Ward Ministry has been an utter failure. For more than four years now this country has borne the burden of a weak and spineless Cabinet, a crew of political cowards, a body of men, apparently, incapable of leading, fit for nothing but to jump from one side to the other as the safety of their skins seems to require. Sir Joseph will be known in history as the "Indiarubber Premier." He can be squeezed in any direction. He can be twisted into any shape. He can be extended or compressed at pleasure. The slightest pressure makes an immediate alteration. The resisting power is nil. His' appearance can be altered in an instant at will. He can be stretched in any -direction. He is pliable in the highest degree. In fact, like indiarubber, he is almost the most easily changeable, the most unreliable thing in nature. And in these respects, indiarubber exActly resembles the Ward Government." .