THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1912. SUPERLATIVE ASSURANCE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10561, 17 February 1912, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1912. SUPERLATIVE ASSURANCE.

The Prime Minister of New Zealand for "the time being has performed a feat of political daring which, for. downright extravagance and ingenuity, has never previously been attempted by tho head of a Government in any of tho self-governing possessions of the Empire. A more desperate, designing, deliberate attempt to defy the will of the people and to stifle public opinion as expressed at the polls has never previously been made in tho history of British possessions than rthat. for wli.ipli Sir Joseph Ward is now responsible. • Only, a fewweeks back tho Ward Party went to the country to be judged upon its merits. It submitted its policy in grandiloquent stylo. It promised reforms here, there and everywhere. Its appeals to the sympathies ' and passions of the people were almost pathetic. And yet tile country, with all these promises and appeals before it, declared most emphatically that it would no longer entrust its destinies to a Party which had surrendered every claiim to its confidence. With what assurance, with what conceit, with what absolute defiance of political proprieties, do we now find a beaten, discredited Prime Minister submitting a policy of a most bewildering and .revolutionary character to the j'ejwesentatives of the people in the hope that by so doing liq may secure a temporary political advantage. A greater insult, we venture to think, was never offered the people of the country. Has Sir Joseph Ward so little respect for the intelligence" of

the representatives of -the people that he imagines it possible to induce members to break their pledges by the most obvious subterfuge? When he asked His Excellency 'the Governor to sum 111011 a special session of Parliament, he knew that he and his party were in a minority in the House. He knew that if members respected their pledges lie must. be beaten on the first no-confidence motion which was tabled. He knew that the country had declared against his administration as well as his vote-catching policy. Had he been possessed of a spark of political manliness, he would have submitted to the will of the people and have placed himself unreservedly in the hands of Parliament. But no.; instead of doing the "right thing" ; instead of being prepared, as moE-t . self-respecting men would have been, to stand or fall by the will of the people, as expressed through their representatives, he seeks in his exasperation and his in.sensa.te lust for office to influence members to break their most sacred pledges, by a .desperate appeal to . their political susceptibilities and credulity. And such an appeal'! Not satisfied with placating the Radical and Labour s>ec'tion of the House with sops of every conceivable description, lie attemptsto trap the Independents by promises of land legislation of a most unique and (seductive character. More than that, he deliberately, and without a blush, purloins almost every plank in the Reform platform, and offers it as his own. He promises reforms of the Legislative Council, - local government reform, progressive land legislation, the opening up of Native lands, insurance against .unemployment, a. revision of the Customs tariffj reduction in the age of female pensioners,, amendments in the industrial laws, cheaper railway fares and freights. In fact, he promises everything that Mr Maissey has promised, with the solitary exception of a reform of the Civil Service. And it is here that we coane to the parting of-the ways. Assuming that Sir Joseph was not strutting, like the jackdaw, in -the feathers of the peacock, and that people could be brought to think that tlie policy he enunciates in the Governor's Speech is really his own, does that rehabilitate him with the people? Was not the country's mandate as much against .the corrupt administration c<f .tie Government as against its policy; of patronage and expediency ? "Of course it was.. Then why does Sir Joseph hold himself and his party up to ridicule by a demonstration of wordy [exuberance ? Why does he not take his beating like a man? Why does lie. thrust upon the country a platitudinous policy which he knows he is incapable of putting into execution? ;The whole business is humiliating in the extreme. It is an attempt to trifle with the intelligence of the electors. It is as hypocritical as it is audacious. It may help the people, however, to a fuller realisation of the .manner of man in whose Jiands their destinies have been entrusted for the last few years. If it does this, it ,may serve a useful purpose.