A LOST OPPORTUNITY

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 85, 7 October 1918, Page 6

A LOST OPPORTUNITY

Onr suggestion that an apology was due from the Government to the candidate whom it threw at the Wellington Central constituency in apparent indifference as to whether he sank or swam, and to the country whom it has thus helped to misrepresent; has not been entirely fruitless. The Acting-Leader of the Liberal Party, with whom the responsibility lay, has made an elaborate statement on the subject which, if not an apology, is at leaat an explanation that no apology is needed. If some of the ingenuity and industry which have been devoted to the preparation of this statement had been expended two or three weeks ago for the benefit of the constituency, the result might perhaps have been different. There is indeed a cheerfulness and a complacency about the Hon. Mr. Mac Donald's explanation which shows that he has some of the indispensable qualifications of leadership, even if he kept them all in abeyance during the campaign. A fortnight ago, when Allenby's pincers were closing like clockwork on the Seventh and Eighth Turkish armies, an official message of the Turkish Government explained that successful rearguard acthus on both sides of the Jordan were accomplishing all that it desired. The Acting-Leader of the New Zealand Liberals seems to be equally thankful for small mercies and equally easy to please; He sees, in an election which put the Government candidate third on the poll with less than a fifth of the votes cast for the two candidates ahead of him, little but an expression of confidence in the Government. The chief cause to my mind (he says) of the defeat .of the National Government candidate is that the Government has handled the affairs of the country so satisfactorily that the majority of the people do not realise that there is a war cm, and they dwell upon their different grievances —political, sectarian, business, and so forth —forgetting altogether that we are engaged in the most titanic struggle for the liberty of mankind since the dawn of history. It is to be hoped that Mr. Mac Donald's optimism is not shared by his colleagues. It is certainly not shared by members of his own party outside the Cabinet. They can see that the confidence of the Wellington Central electors in the Government was so well disguised as to amount in intent, no less than in. effect, to a direct negative. Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love, But—why did you kick me downstairs?Mr. Mac Donald's cheerful interpretation of the verdict of Wellington Central should at least have been accompanied by the remonstrance which is conveyed in this question. What he and his colleagues should realise, and what both he and they doubtless do realise, is that a few more such votes of confidence as that recorded last week will make the position of the Government exceedingly precarious. Half a dozen such votes might even destroy the Government in which the official augurs interpreted them as expressing confidence. That a majority of the Wellington Central electors voted as if they did not understand that there was a war on may be freely conceded to the spokesman of the Government. That this view was still more clearly implied in the attitude of the thousands who committed a still more glaring breach of duty by refusing to vote either way is also true. But the complacent conclusion that this lack of perception and lack of patriotism may be ascribed to the satisfactory manner in which the Government has handled the affairs of the country is certainly not justified. Nor, even if this conclusion were justified, would it justify the inaction of the Government in regard to the Wellington Central election. The main reasons why it is difficult to get the average non-combatant in this country to realise his responsibilities in regard to the war are our remoteness from the scenes of actual operations, and the success with which the forces of the Allies, and especially the British Navy, have preserved for us the initial advantages of this geographical isolation. Insofar as he thinks at all, it is to these agencies that he attributes the security which we have enjoyed, but his gratitude would be much keener, and would be brought into much closer relations with his political interests, if during four years of war this immunity had been less complete, and if to-day the perils from enemy mines on our coast 3 had been more acute. But, while taking these privileges as a part of the natural order of things, or attributing them entirely to external agencies, the elector has no hesitation in ascribing all the ailments produced by. the war to the Government which, subject to a reconstruction after the first year, has held office during the whole period. All the hardships and inconveniences are attributed to the Government, while the things that have gone well are credited to others. That is the fundamental difficulty which the Government has to face, and which goes far to discount the advantages conferred upon it by its bi-party basis. It is for this reason that a Government candidate labours under special embarrassments at the present time. A wide general programme cannot avail him much, since, as Mr. Mac Donald argues, >" the public of New Zealand as a whole know the Government policy, which cannot be altered to any great extent until a general election." A Government candidate must therefore be mainly on the defensive, and he has to defend a Government which is debited with everything that has gone wrong, and gets little credit for all the good things that it has done. That it has enabled the Dominion to play its part worthily in the war is one of the things that are taken for granted. That the burden of taxation' has been increased is, on the other hand, treated as one of the sins of the Govern-, ment. The increase in the cost of living is another of the sins laid to its charge. Mr. Mac Donald's reference to the irresponsible critics who clamour for a reduction in the cost of living " by some magic unknown to the National Government" is perfectly just, but why was not its justice made clear to the electors by a Ministerial exposition? Here and there the Government has missed some obvious chances of mitigating this trouble, but in the main tt;U cogntey i» auflwjgg,

though in a smaller degree, from a malady which the war has brought upon every other country, and which for the most part baffled other Governments, just as it has baffled our own. This could have been proved to the hilt from tho platforms of Wellington Central, but the Government missed the opportunity, and let the case go by default, with consequences on which the anti-war minority is gloating to-day. The Government must ■display more alertness, .and a greater readiness to take the people into its confidence, if it desires to retain its place in the confidence of the people.