As polling day approaches, the Press will be found attacking, with unparalleled fervour, the present Government party, and prophesying disaster to the country if it is not defeated. In a word, we are faced with an Election in which the forces of reaction will use all their tremendous power in an attempt to restore that condition of organised stagnation which they appear to look upon as the normal condition of human society. In this attempt the press will be their chief weapon. They will use it to create a "fear psychology" among the electors. This is by no means the first time such a thing has happened.

Let us turn back the files of the "New Zealand Herald" to the year 1893.

We choose that year for a particular reason. In 1893 a situation existed in New Zealand that was rather similar to that which confronts us now, in 1938—forty-five years later. After a period of depression, during which the conservative Atkinson Government had imposed harsh measures of "economy" on those least able to bear such burdens, that Government had been defeated. In 1890, by a combination representing, broadly. Liberal and Labour interests.

In 1893 this new and progressive Government was put to its first severe test—Its First General Election, after being Three Years in Office.