GRIP WEAKENING

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 68, Issue 143, 30 March 1948, Page 4

GRIP WEAKENING

Government and Four Maori Seats

INDEPENDENT PARTY POSSIBLE (P.A.) WELLINGTON, This Day. The Government grip on the four Maori parliamentary constituencies was weakening, and Ratanism, with which, he said, the Labour Party had effected a political alliance, was disintegrating.

This opinion was expressed in an interview by Mr O. T. Haddon who, until recently, was organising secretary of the Maori Advisory Council of the Ndw Zealand Labour Party. Mr Haddon said he was touring the

Maori' electorates with the object of organising an independent political group; “Very few people seem to realise it, although I believe some Government members are uneasily aware of the fact, that Ratanism, as

a religious cult, is collapsing,” said Mr Haddon. “The process may develop very swiftly,and Ratanism will join the ghosts of Ringatu, Hauhauisin and Tollungism. The political effects will certainly be considerable, and I believe that they are already appearing. When the Labour Party formed

an- alliance with a religious cut,' many people regarded it as a clever political expedient. It has certainly yielded some dividends to the Government, and it gave the Labour party Its only Parliamentary mandate at - the last General Election. Vet time will almost certainly prove it a- folly/from the viewpoint of worthwhile political results and Uie security of a union without parallel elsewhere in the British Commonwealth of Nations and possibly in the world.” Mr Haddon said his tour was for the purpose of discovering means of more effective parliamentary * representation of the Maoris without the

benefit or otherwise of Ratanism or % anything of the kind. “We must have members who will fight in Parliament for a decisive policy which truly expresses Maori aspirations,” he said. “I think the response is promising. Much can happen between now and the election, 'but there may be a strong movement toward an independent Maori. party whi9h could hold - the balance of power.”