STIMULUS TO REFORM.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 213, 8 September 1923, Page 15

STIMULUS TO REFORM.

A REAL OPPOSITION. MR. WII/FORD'S VIEWS. In the course of a speech in reply to a "send-off" tendered at Lower Hutt, Wellington, to the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Wilford said the Reform party had felt for the first time the effect ot a real Opposition. The result was that it felt the 'beginning of disintegration; and when the Reform party broke up it would smash so irretrievably that it would never be put together again. (Laughter and applause.) For the first time the Opposition had beaten the Government on an amendment that he (Mr. Wilford) moved to the Dairy Export Control Bill, by seven votes. (Applause.) But the Massey party wae not turned out because Mr. Massey saw what was coming and made the bill a non-party measure. (Laughter ana applause.) The signs of disintegration were plain to the men in the House, and he hoped they would be as plain to the man in the street. There was hardly a bi" division now that the Opposition did not have some member of the Reform party voting with it. (Applause.) The Reform party was tottering to its fall; and who would replace it? The people of this country were not prepared for the Holland party, but they were prepared to take back to their arms the Liberal-Labour party, which had played so erreat a part in the past history of New Zealand. (Applause.) That party stood for progress, not reaction; for evolution, not revolution; and it was the Liberal-Labour party that tne people of New Zealand wanted. (Loud applause.)