THE POLITICAL SITUATION

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 50, 22 November 1928, Page 11

THE POLITICAL SITUATION

THE DOMINANT PARTY Sir, —The amount of twaddle that is expressed day by day in regard to the position of the Government in the present crisis, is astounding, and Sir Joseph Ward is not the least offender. He says he expects to hear of the resignation of the Government as soon as the votes are checked. Of course, “the wish is father to the thought” in his case, because the resignation would place him temporarily in the position he covets most: That is, he would jump into the position now occupied by the Rt. Hon. Mr. Coates. Did he ever pause to consider what right he would have to that position? Could he pretend to claim that the electors of the Dominion have given him the mandate to occupy it? Emphatically, they have not. True, they have reduced Mr. C. ntes’s majority to a minority of the Whole House; but, by doing so, they have not expressed confidence in Sir Joseph Ward by giving him a majority over Mr. Coates, nor did they ever intend to do so—that is quite clear.

What the Labour Party would do in the circumstances is beside the question, for the very sufficient reason that its hopeless minority was not placed there to support Sir Joseph Ward, who, if he desire_s to be consistent, must decline that suppo’rt. Hitherto, the “United” Party has given.its support to Mr. Coates in all no-confidence motions. What has happened since to justify any change in that attitude? Nothing whatever. If Sir Joseph Ward would not lend Mr. Holland a political sixpence, he must rank himself as one of the meanest of politicians if he borrows a political sixpence from Mr. Holland, particularly when, as everyone knows, the acceptance of that loan carries with it, as it inevitably would, the subservience of Sir Joseph Ward and his party to the dictum of the Holland party. What would the country think of that situation? Did the great majority of the voters ever dream that it could happen? Sir, I happen to know that the desire of the country could not by any stretch of imagination be interpreted to mean that either Sir Joseph Ward or Mr. Holland, or both, were to replace Mr. Coates, and the results of the ballot emphatically support that view. Sir Joseph Ward himself has been defeated, not only in the whole country, but in his own constituency, and the recent poll has not reversed that condemnation, unless it is claimed that the votes cast for Mr. Holland and his party were votes cast for him and his followers, and I think the absurdity of that claim is too apparent. The position, then, is that Mr. Coates still leads the dominant party, and has the prior right to ascertain what it is that the majority of electors throughout the Dominion intended him to do, and that he can only ascertain by another appeal to the electors. With a two-party contest, of course, the matter would be quite plain, and he would have to hand in his resignation; but the interests of the country clearly demand of him that he shall not hand over the reins of Government to any leader or party in whom the country itself has not expressed its confidence. —I am, etc., JUS TERTII. Wellington, November 20.