What the Liberals won’t do.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 559, 20 January 1891, Page 2

What the Liberals won’t do.

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What Mr Ballanoe may succeed in doing should he take office and form a stable Ministry may be left for time to show. He will certainly endeavor to carry Liberal measures. Should he be unable to carry them, there is one thing which we trust he will not do. that is, hold on to office session after session and bu content to do nothing. That sort of thing may be good enough for a Conservative Government, but the people do not want it from Liberals. Qu the whole we rather fancy 1 h »t timidity and indifference are not the ebarges most likely to ba made against the next Liberal Ministry, We shall see, But there is one thing which we venture to say that Mr Ballance and his friends will not do. They will not get into office ou the strength of a certain policy, and then stay In by cerr/fog exactly the opposite poliay. They wjd not defeat lheir opponents' policy and then steal It, Tb»t is wbat tbe Couservatives base done, These man who now coolly allege and complain that the Liberals have won tbs elections by a programme Urey will not try to carry out—what did they do themselvoa hi lbS7 and 1888? Wbat Was the programme by which their party won the elections in 183" • They promised to fitgp further borrowing. They promised to save the elßatnr- from fresh taxation. They promised to effect extreme retveuchmeu', uoc moderate, but ‘drastic* retrenchment, They promised to oppose Proteo ion; indeed, many of their candidates fought their election figh s chiefly on the cry of Fnstrade. Directly they got in what did 'bey do? They borrowed the last sixpence which the credit of tfie colony could raise in' Loudon, They clapped ou taxation to the tune of more than £BOO,OOO a year, They fctight hard last session against needful and praciiosble retrenobmeut. They introduced and carried a Customs tariff, more pn.ieitionisl than the one they had denounced and detested tbe year betoie, a tariff against which every argument which they had used could be employed with even'greater force, from tbs Freelrade point of view. Many more were their incoueiMenple». But these tew will suffice. We have showa how they got tfis ear ot tbe ecustituenoies in 1887, and how they than redeemed their pledges. Will Mr Ballance act as they did ? We ventuie to say he will not. To rival them he would have to act somewhat in this way. He would have to wipe out existing village eettlemente instead of founding mpre. He would have to help the pwners of'he Ug estates to enlarge their sereages. He would have summarily 10 con vert all peiuetum i«B‘S; i u w {teefivlda ; to double Mr Maxwell’s salary aud give him a Un years' lease ot office ; to abolish the £5OO exemptions from the property tax : aud bring ip a Quinquennial Parliament Bill."