PARTY POLITICS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 115, 18 May 1933, Page 5

PARTY POLITICS.

ATTITUDE OF FARMERS REMITS FOR THE CONFERENCE INSPECTION or EUNDS. i Party politics is a subject which has not yet been overlooked in the agenda for the thirty-third annual conference of the Auckland provincial branch of the New Zealand Farmers' Union, which is to open at Wliangarei on Wednesday nert. Incidentally there will be no evening session on the opening day on account of the holding of the convention of the Country party. Eight remits dealing with various questions under the heading of political will be placed before the conference. One remit proposes: "This conference is emphatically of opinion that the time has arrived when the union should support the political party which is pledged definitely to place the major of the union in the forefront of its policy, and as the Country party is the only party to give this pledge in toto, the union should officially support it." It is suggested further that it would be in the best interests of the New Zealand Farmers' Union that no member be allowed to occupy the dual position of Dominion president and member of Parliament. A reduction in the membership of the Legislative Council to 20 men, to be elected by the people, is proposed, and it is urged that to ensure that each member of the House of Representatives is returned by a majority vote, the elections be conducted under the preferential voting system. It is considered that opposition should be raised to the suggestion that the prerogative of Parliament be usurped by "Order-in-Council as an unwarranted abrogation of the rights of electors. "This conference," states another remit, "is seriously alarmed at the threat of Government, through the Minister of Finance, to rule without Parliament, if Government's measures are not carried, and considers this to be in violation of constitutional government and an incentive to disorder." On the question of party funds it is proposed: "The funds of \ >litic£il parties should be subject to a special audit by a Supreme Court judge, they should be sworn to by those responsible ae rot having been contributed under any secret promise or pledge of .special legislation, and all moneys spent by any person or organisation in connection with any election be duly declared and open for inspection in the way as those moneys expended by candidates."