And Partisans

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 24053, 15 September 1943, Page 4

And Partisans

Mr Holland is right -in another respebt. He has “ given the Govern-. “ ment where he thought it “was tfue.” Certainly, the National Party is not conducting this campaign without condemning the executive errors and administrative failures of the Government. But neither leader nor party suggests that the Government’s record consists of errors and failures only. The Opposition, during the life .of the Government and especially during the four years of war, has again and again approved and. assisted. When it has not approved, it has assisted critically. This is no empty paradox: it, states the plain, wholesome truth about the function of the minority in a democratic Parliament. The Prime Minister acknowledged as much, in his final speech of the session. The country, hp said, had “every reason to be proud of “ those who were members of Parliament during the greatest crisis “in its history. They had lived up “to the highest traditions of “ democracy.” His colleague, the Minister of Transport, the Hon. J. O’Brien, however, brushes all this aside, with a tar-brush. What happened since the war broke out? We know. Every step that was taken we were howled at by the Opposition. . . . They helped with the war effort, all right! l They promised to and then sabotaged everything that went on. It is our job to defend New Zealand, and we are doing it well, with the other crowd barking at our heels.

So Mr O’Brien told his Greymouth electors. They had something to applaud, the spectacle of so insignificant a politician wielding so huge a pot and brush. Now Mr O’Brien, also, recently told the electors of Tinwald, as “ The Press ” reported with equal justice and glee, that “there never was a more “ bitter, a more anti-New Zealand “ paper than ‘ The Press' at Christ- “ church.” The one comment on Mr O’Brien’s brushwork that we allow ourselves is out of character. It is generous: and it is prompted by an anxious regard for New Zealand’s welfare. The Labour Party will contribute unworthily to New Zealand’s political life so long as it has room, in office, for dreary little partisans.