The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News The Echo and The Sun. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1932. ISSUES IN MOTUEKA.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 284, 30 November 1932, Page 6

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

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1932. ISSUES IN MOTUEKA.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance. And the good that ice can do.

In Motueka the Labour Party is working hard to capture a seat it has never held, and to support the Coalition candidate two Ministers have left Wellington at a particularly busy time. The contest is complicated by the return to the limelight of Mr. "Roddy" McKenzie, a Liberal stalwart of the SeddonWard days. Mr. McKenzie seems to have no prospect of success, but his intervention may allow the Labour candidate to slip in. The interest of the election lies in the amount of response the electorate will make to the Labour Party's* programme. Mr. "Webb has this in his favour, that everybody is feeling the pinch of bad times, and in these circumstances there is always a disposition to blame the Government. Many electors may turn to the Labour Party with the idea that nothing could be worse than present conditions (in which they would be quite wrong), and that a change of Government might improve matters. The Labour Party is pursuing a policy with which the country has long been familiar. It still refuses to admit the full truth about the slump, but continues to make party capital out of it. It still claims to be able, if it is given the opportunity, to put things right with a few strokes of the pen. Possibly the party leaders hope that the public will not reflect that no Government in the world —Labour, Liberal or Conservative —has so far been able to brush the slump aside, or even mitigate its effects substantially. One feels sure that the last thing Mr. Holland and his colleagues wish to-day is that they should be called upon to form a Government to-morrow. One can imagine them trembling at the prospect. In the meantime, however, the suggestion that they could settle difficulties if they only had the opportunity is considered excellent propaganda. It remains to bo seen how far it will be effective in the largely rural electorate of Motueka. Mr. Holland has said that if the party can win Motueka it can look forward to winning almost every seat in the Dominion. This is absurd, but if it wins Motueka it will certainly give the Government something to think about.