PUBLIC OPINION.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2537, 25 June 1909, Page 2

PUBLIC OPINION.

WARD AN!D HIS WORKS. Sir Joeph Ward is in the honorable position of being at the head of an Administration which for the last eighteen years has deliberately degraded the public life of New Zealand. When that Administration began its career it had ideas, and though it made mistakes it did many_ things that badly needed doing. Its head was a bluff, big-hearted man, who fought many battles for tho common people. Ho has been dead for three years and in the Administration which he helped to found there now survive . only his , iee:. Swol en with the iust of power Sodden forgot most of his earlier principles. He became the autocrat of New Zealand who ruled with a rod of iron, and dispensed favors to his friends as though the Governmental machinery was, his personal property. In Sir Joseph Ward one finds Seddon’s ignoble love of office,'less gross in its expression perhaps, hut none tho less evil, but one looks in vain for the democratic spirit and the willingness to serve on behalf of the n-eople that to many people almost redeemed the uglinesses of Seddon’s career. Seddon’s warty methods Arose not so much from moral unsoundness as from a coarseness of fibre. King Dick at bottom, when you dug deep enough down, meant well. He was stained with very human faults, but New Zealand 'knew him for a man.—“ The Citizen.” THE PRESS CONFERENCE The Press Conference has served as r>n occasion to emphasise the menagerie theory of national and international life, the gospel of Force, and the trade militarism which involves colossal 'fleets and armies and a diplomacy founded on international distrust and hostility. It is the application of the tooth and claw and fang of the Darwinian theory to politics. But a little thought should suffice to show that thero must be something rotten in a theory which needlessly adds so much to the weight of obviously preventible human ills. It is a false interpretation of life and of nature and its meth--ods, of the God-given social order, and of the philosophy of history—“ New Zealand Tablet.” THE POLICE FORCE. The condition of the police force at the present time furnishes abundant proof of the demoralising effect of allowing political considerations to influence appointments to the Public Service. The force is a favorite dumping ground for the friends and supporters of politicians. When the average M.P. wants the country to reward a man for some personal service, he pulls the leg of the Government to make him a policeman, and in the light of the revelations made in the House on Tuesday the country would do well to pass a special Act for the speedy deportation of the average politician’s friends, instead of putting them on its pay-roll as responsib'e officials. When one recalls the Dunedin police scandal of a few years ago, the bungling of the police in the Westport murder case, the conviction of constables in Wellington recently for assault, and the numberless minor complaints against the conduct of members of the force, it is quite obvious that it needs reforming very badly. By the admission of all these undesirables a slur is cast on the whole force, and one that must be felt very keenly by the large number of honest and capable officers who are really holding it together. Under the system advocated by Mr. Herdman of vesting- the responsibility of making all Public Service appointments in a non-political Board there would be an end to that wretched and degraded system of stuffing tho service with political hangers-on and persons generally incapable of impressing private employers with their abilities. — c ‘Christchurch News.” THE PRIME MINISTER AND RELIEF. Sir Joseph Ward professes to be exceedingly sympathetic with the unemployed, who are making their presence felt in our industrial centres; he explains that he is doing as much as he can to relieve the distress inevitable with lac‘k of employment, and asserts that “The Government is fully alive to tlie situation, and quite anxious to get as many people on the land as posj sible. It has been doing so all along.” We are sorry to have to charge the Prime Minister with political insincerity, for he must know —-being a Bhrewd business man—that the existing shortage of employment is due, wholly and solely, to tho extraordinary impediments thrown by his Administrations, in the way of land settlement, and to the wilful and deliberate locking-up of the. virgin lands of the Dominion in the face of eager and anxious settlors.—“New Zealand Herald.”