POLITICAL TRUCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 136, 6 December 1939, Page 10

POLITICAL TRUCE

WELCOME GESTURE

GOVERNMENT SHOULD

RESPOND

(By Telegraph.) (Specifcl to the "Evening fast.")

DUNEDIN, This Day.

NThe "Otago Daily Times" in an editorial says it is to be hoped that the Government will respond to the announcement of the Leader of the Opposition that the National Party is to cease political activities over the holidays.

"There should have been no occasion for Mr. Hamilton to make such a decision apart altogether from the desirability of a political truce at a time when the public are anxious to have relief from the ordinary preoccupations of the year," states the editorial. "The fact that the nation is at war should relegate party politics to > the background of community life. Unfortunately the Government has made this impossible. Not content with having, through its extravagant administration prior to the outbreak of war, forced the country into serious financial straits, it is persisting ia implementing its Socialistic policies at a time when the need is for concentration of all resources on a single aim, New Zealand's war effort.

"Members of the Government, as propagandists and apologists for this hazardous Socialist programme, have utilised the radio, in addition to news channels, in an' effort to justify Labour's political > doctrines, and the indications are" that their/ caiiipaign is intensifying as spontaneous pilblic expressions of concern at the country's position increase. Mr. Hamilton's announcement is to be Welcomed as a gesture ( which the public can appreciate, bu<i it can be scarcely more than a gesture unless organised Labour is prepared to reciprocate." •