The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News. The Echo and The Sun MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1943. SETBACK FOR THE GOVERNMENT

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 229, 27 September 1943, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News. The Echo and The Sun MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1943. SETBACK FOR THE GOVERNMENT

gUPERFICIALLY, little has been altered by the general election. The . Labour Government went to the polls with a big majority, and it has leturned with a majority reduced, but still ample to enable it to carry on. A tightly-disciplined party meets no technical difficulties if it nas a majority of eight, or even of four. Mr. Massey managed with a majority of two. If the Labour party so decides—and the Prime Ministers remarks early on Sunday morning indicated that it will—it can choose from its ranks a new Speaker, replace its defeated Ministers ana carry on. It can even claim that if the votes cast for the Democratic Labour party are added to its own a majority of the people of New Zealand voted for Labour. PariS^? a ? ne wiU b f more acutel 3 r aw are than the Government and its on <S ? taiy supporters that something has been altered by the voting fl + I Luday - The y have received a severe setback, the evidence of which in ThoV nOt ? nly in the list of Lab our members defeated, but also WPh ™^ a y y red H ced majorities of those who were re-elected. The X™ nfidence and the irritating complacency which they expressed aS™£ ; I V • W1 I sdom of th eir policy and the expertness of their + ? n 1S obviousl y n °t shared by the electorate in anything like me degree tnat would have been necessary to justify it. In particular, the Servicemen's Settlement and Land Sales Act must be thought to nave been decisively rejected by the country electorates, which it chiefly affects. The feeling hostile to the Act, added to the unpopularity of the internal Marketing Division, undoubtedly resulted in the defeat of the iion. Air. Barclay, whose misfortune it was to be directly associated with Dotn. Mr. Holland ia clearly right in asserting that the people voted in favour of the Government's calling a halt in the expansion of its domestic policy, involving as it does an ever-increasing degree and variety of State control. Though the Government will have adequate numerical support in the new House, its strength there will not be commensurate with its numbers. The quality of its personnel was not impressive before the election; it is less impressive now. In a period in which the production of the farming industries will be perhaps more important than ever before, a period, therefore, in which good relationships between the Government and the farmers will be essential, the Government will have very few farming members, and it will find difficulty in choosing a capable and acceptable Minister of Agriculture. Even when it had its large pre-election majority it felt itse!f obliged to go outside the House for a Minister of National Service. That arrangement, if continued, will be even less satisfactory than in the past, for the manpower problem will become increasingly important, and it demands the attention of a Minister directly answerable to the House. The reduction in the Government party's numerical strength, its palpable qualitative deficiencies, and the fact that the new House will be lopsided—with a great preponderance of farming representatives in the Opposition and very few on the Labour side—increase the force and number of arguments for the formation of a non-party Government This the Opposition advocated before the election, and Mr. Holland immediately after the polls, suggested it again. It is for the Government party to reconsider its attitude to the proposal. The nature and magnitude of the problems which face the country are such that their solution demands unity in political administration. If the Government attempts their solution alone, and fails, it will be swept out of existence at the next election.