PARTY STRIFE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 172, 23 July 1941, Page 9

PARTY STRIFE

CONDEMNED BY CHURCHMAN NATIONAL UNITY PLEA j (0.C.) WELLINGTON, Tuesday. In an address in Wellington, the llev. Gladstone Hughes referred to the political situation in New Zealand. He said that for close on two years the less partisan elements in the communitv had been hoping for rull national unity, but it seemed as far off as ever. Party interests had | stood in the way. . While men of all creeds and parties were standing shoulder to shoulder —a band of brothers, if ever there v ,- as one —against the common foe, it v.a<; nothing less than a national :-<andal that "politicians should be indulging in the unseemly game of .fanning to flame the embers of dying party antipathies and of making partv capital out of quibbling verbal contests. That when the flower of New Zealand's manhood was facing death on their behalf! Thev must get rid of the tyranny of fixed ideas about the sanctity of Capitalism on the one hand and of the sanctity of Socialism on the other hand. Only by shaking themselves free from these political obsessions could they hope t.) work out on constructive lines the comp.omisw which avoided doctrinaire extremes and which the political instinct and genius of the British people could produce. Ths Prime Minister was presumably a converted man, for, according to the cable news, he had blessed the National Government at Home and had congratulated Mr. Churchill on having included in his Government the best men of all parties. Let him take strong action on his return, and he would have the support of every right-minded man and woman in New Zealand. An acrimonious party conflict at a general election was unthinkable and the only alternative to that was full national unity. If they really wanted brotherhood, let them have a generous instalment immediately. The initiative was with the Government and its responsibility was grave.