Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 1911. THE GLOVES OFF.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10210, 12 April 1911, Page 4

Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 1911. THE GLOVES OFF.

| Mr A. L. Herdman is one of the fighting men of the Opposition. Plain, straight, honest and sincere, he is in every sense a true patriot. Probably there is no man on the Opposition benches at the present time whose criticism the Prime Minister fears so much as that of the member for Wellington North. Air Herdman addressed his constituents on Monday night, and fairly shook the building with his denunciation of the fraud, device, cunning and hypocrisy which are being practised in the name of Liberalism. That his vigorous assault upon tho Continuous "Ministry should have provoked rounds of applause Mas as much a tribute, to the eloquence and power of the speaker as it was significant of the change which is coming over the political horizon. Mr Herdman deserves the thanks of every patriotic citizen for the straightforward manner in- which he dealt with the great ■national problems of the day. Unhappily there are too few Oppositionists who are so keen to take off the gloves as fthe member for Wellington North. The political expedients which have kept the alleged Liberal party in power for so many years have been treated with a sort of passive resistance in the past. Men who have known the limitations of the | Continuous Ministry have failed to i expose them on the hustings, with the result that things have been allowed to drift from bad to worse. While, however, Mr Herdman is to be congratulated upon t-hc completeness of his exposure of the hollow shams which parade in the guise of patriots, he cannot be complimented upon

the constructive ability which lie displayed. And this is where the weakness of the Opposition lies. It otters no rational substitute for the mock Liberalism which dominates the democracy of this country. Why does it not come straight out with a vigorous policy of land settlement, a reform of the Civil Service, a scheme for the restoration of confidence, sane electoral laws, and a system under w,hich the dual Legislature will bo something more than a mockery ? It has the constructive ability, if it will only apply it. Why does it wait? Why does it lay itself open to the charge that it has no policy?