The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. TUESDAY, AUGUST 18, 1931. THE POLITICAL OUTLOOK.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 194, 18 August 1931, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 18, 1931. THE POLITICAL OUTLOOK.

Tor the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistances For the future in the distance, And the good that me can do.

One may be certain that the reply Mr. Coates has made to the business men of Wellington on the subject of fusion will not satisfy even a majority of those who there and elsewhere have approached him on this matter. As was pointed out some weeks ago, a large proportion of those who signed the memorandum in Auckland were Reformers, and there is no reason to believe that Auckland is different in this respect from other centres. It is true that Mr. Coates , position is difficult. The public can only surmise what has taken place within the party, what objections have been raised to fusion, and what hopes have been expressed of success at the forthcoming elections. Some Reformers, one suspects, are convinced that the party is going to sweep the country. However this may be, the governing fact is that the idea of fusion is definitely removed, for the present at any rate, from practical politics. The three parties will go to the poll this year as separate entities and with separate programmes.

Mr. Coates says that the Reform Government exists only for the purpose of forming a strong and stable government, and it believes it to be more desirable to go to the electors with a clear statement of its aims and policy than as part of an "amalgamated party" whose superficial unity would conceal diversity of aim and outlook. It will be interesting to see what this policy is. What does Reform stand for? As a correspondent asked yesterday, what does it seek to reform? It was in power from 1912 to 1928, a period quite long enough for the full exercise of its reforming zeal. Does it wish to reform only the policy of the United Party, or does it mean to throw its influence further back into political history? If the Reform Party says that it stands for the balancing of the Budget, general economy and the encouragement of production, the Government can reply that all this is also in its programme. The truth is that in this crisis the programmes of the two non-Labour parties inevitably converge. The country sees that in the Budget debate. Mr. Coates gives general approval to the Budget policy, but reserves the right to criticise details. When the election arrives, what policy is he going to put forward that in any material respects will differ from that of Mr. Forbes ? The dominant question ox the day is the balancing of the Budget, and the two parties will be fighting each other on an issue upon which, in the main, they agree. They and the third party, Labour, which has a policy of ignoring facts and making the so-called rich pay for everything, will seek the verdict of the people under an antiquated, irrational and undemocratic system of voting. In such circumstances anything may happen. The political fate of the country is thus put to a hazard which has been clearly foreseen.