ELECTION IN AUGUST.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20250, 30 May 1931, Page 14

ELECTION IN AUGUST.

LABOUR LEADER'S VIEW. UNITED PARTY'S PLEDGES. That the nest General Election, may fall in August instead ,of m. N°vem was the possibility br the Leader of the Labour Party Holland, M.P.) during his P ol]ltl ™\ * dress at the Choral Hall last/vemng "The election may come m August and it may come at the the year," said Mr Holland. "What will happen 'will depend on Mr F<arbes in the first case and on Mr Coates m the other. If it is left to- the Labour Party the election will come at the earliest possible moment we get the opportunity to move a vote o± no-con-fidence in Mr Forbes." _ , rommpntinc on the present political dSsrsf£»in New Zealand's history had there been such a wholesale rtv election pledges as the had made. While every Party the right to revise its policy once it was in power, if a Party was e ecfed on a certain programme it sh< f ld £ 0 back to the electors before that programme' was., scrapped. "The Honourable Course." "Mr Forbes may prefer to take that course," added Mr Holland. I it is the only course which could be; taken with honour by a Party m Buch: a position as Mr Forbes's is to-day. "The Hauraki by-election may have changed the United Party's viewpoint, for the outstanding point abou+ Hauraki was the heav* drop in the -farty s vo t 6 — a drop from more than -200U votes to 900, which is no .more and no less than a direct vote of no-confidenee.; "Reform was jubilant at winning the seat, but actually it held only what it_ had before. Why, the Reformers were almost paralysed with surprise at having won it again. Wage Seduction Opposed. "The peculiar thing about it all. was that : while the Party supported the Government's attack on wagesand the social services, arid its dismissal ■ of Civil Servants, the elected candidate in: Hauraki was v apposed to all these things , and, intact, definitely pledged himself against the wage reductions which, his Party stood for. . ' "I can see sand getting- into- the bearings' before the. Reform machine gots .very much further,", added . Mr Holland. ; VIEWS OF MR COATES. "It is the florfe of scare-mongering one might expect," said the, ■ Bight Hon. -J. 6. Coates, Leader of the Reform Party, when asked yesterday if he liad any comment to offer on a published statement that "Mr Forbes and. his colleagues had now to decide whether it was, their duty to go through with their programme," in view of the verdict -in -the Hauraki. by-election. The Reform.' Party would wait and sco what the Budget and taxation proposals of the Government were. Any decision aa- to an early election lay with the Government, He hadv not beett' advised by Mr Foirbes or anyone else" that Parliament would not meet on the date already announced to deal with the Govern- ! 'ment's legislative" programme. The i Reform Party's offer of co-operation still lmlfl .good If there was an election soon the Reform Party organisation would be ready for it, and its. candidates would be carefully chosen citizens.