THE GAME OF POLITICS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 168, 18 July 1941, Page 6

THE GAME OF POLITICS

UR. Holland has again drawn the attention of the country to the determination of the Government to have an election this year, and its refusal to sink differences and by forming a coalition enable the

country to pull together in an all-in war effort. There has been no definite statement yet that an election will be held this year, but every sign and portent points to the certainty that one will be held. One of the latest indications was the statement of the Hon. A. H. Nordmeyei on Wednesday night. He then made it clear that he still believes that the Labour members, with but a fifty-four per cent vote of the whole electorate, though with a much greater majority in Parliament than that vote Indicates, should disfranchise the rest of the voters, in a time of national crisis, by refusing to link up with them in a national Government designed to secure the greatest efficiency of which Parliament and the country is capable. He knows of nothing, he says, more calculated to split and disrupt the people than the formation of a national Government. Such a statement, coming from a man who is considered responsible enough to hold a portfolio, gives an indication of the relative importance of war and political office in his mind. Does he suggest that the formation of a national Government has disrupted the people of Britain? He knows that it has not, but that it has brought a realisation of what total warfare means to every man and woman in the United Kingdom. We are far from that essential knowledge here, and if Mr.Nordmeyer has his way we will continue to sit in darkness. Mr. Nordmeyer wants it both ways. He and those associated with him refuse the right hand of assistance and at the same time seek to silence any criticism of any of their actions by declaring that it is injuring the war effort. They talk of political truce and, while talking <jf it in order to silence their opponents, make political capital out of every occasion that arises. Mr. Nash has suggested that the offer of a seat in the War Cabinet to the Leader of the Opposition Is all that is necessary in the way of unification. It is, perhaps, all that is necessary to stifle any remnant of criticism from the Opposition, but it is not by any means making the best use of the Parliamentary machine.