The Press Tuesday, November 13, 1928. The Issue.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19466, 13 November 1928, Page 10

The Press Tuesday, November 13, 1928. The Issue.

1 In his final message to the electors which we print this morning the Prime Minister says that there are two questions only to be answered. The electors have simply to ask themselves whether they desire that the Government which has brought the Dominion safely through such difficult years shall be given a further term of office or whether the control of the country shall be handed over to Labour-Socialists. The third Party, Mr Contes says—and it is a quite legitimate thing to say in the circumstances —need not be seriously considered as a possible successor to the Reform Party. It has no hope of being returned to power even by an accident and can therefore ask for support from those people only who vote fanatically or vindictively. People who vote for candidates because they are " good fellows,"" or because their political ancestry is good, or for some other equally fantastic reason of the " once a Liberal always a Liberal" order, will perhaps see nothing improper in voting for the United Party, but no one else will vote for it unless it is his purpose to injure the Reform Party by any means in his power. That is to say the United Party, except as a mischief-making factor, will not be considered at all to-morrow by 75 per cent, of the public. Labour on the other hand will poll heavily, and every vote cast for it will be a vote, whatever its leaders may say now, for Socialism and revolution. It is not a national or a universal Party, and except on the eve of an election, hardly pretends to be, so that the only Party which represents all sections of the community, and legislates for all, and gives all an equal chance, is the Party on whose behalf the Prime Minister's message is issued. If Labour had been put in office with .such a majority as Mr Coates has had behind him during the last three years it would have used its power to please its friends and spite its enemies. It could not have done otherwise, pledged as it is to put the Labour cause, which means the Labour man, before all others. Reform did not use its power tyrannically, but honestly and fairly for the good of all classes, though the temptation to act otherwise was sometimes stronger than any Party with the same absolute power has ever before had to meet. Even now, when the electors' have the Government's fate entirely in their hands, and are being promised, all kinds of desirable things if they will vote Liberal or Labour, the Reform Party promises them nothing at all. but an honest carrying-out of the sober policy pursued during the last three years. It is not necessary to repeat what that policy is or where it is leading. The Prime Minister's statement is too plain to be misunderstood, his pledges too definite to be /withdrawn or evaded. .If the electors' vote for Reform they will gel; the benefit for a further three years of the thmgs that Reform stands for—prudent;finance, better farming, industrial security (so far as that lies in the Government's hands), reduced taxation, helper roads and schools, and so oh —provided always that they help the Government to bring them about. If they vote'for Labour they will get what Labour stands for —and everybody knows that it is a good deal more than Lnbpur has talked about during the last four weeks. ,