A PROFITLESS MOTION

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 308, 23 September 1932, Page 10

A PROFITLESS MOTION

It is not easy to see what the Leader of the Opposition hopes to achieve by his no-confidence motion, except it be a waste of Parliament’s time and the people’s money. The Government can counter Mr. Holland’s empty challenge by a large majority and he knows it. His motion is just another exercise in political futility, the sort of politics of which the country is utterly sick. Nor is it only a question of the confidence of the House of Representatives. Less than a year ago the Government was returned to office by the people. Mr. Holland’s motion is therefore equivalent to a vote of no-confidence in the electors on whose judgment he professes to rely. It was the people who approved the policy the Government is carrying out and the people who disapproved and, indeed, distrusted the “policy” (mainly based on currency manipulation) presented by Mr. Holland. They accepted the one and rejected the other. The House is in no danger of running counter to that verdict; but the Labour-Socialists should recognise that, if it did, the principle of democracy would be broken by flouting the popular vote. They might also ask themselves why the electors have been careful at election after election to exclude them from office.

Probably the chief reason lies in the fact that the Labour Party has shown no sense of responsibility and no care for the commonweal as distinct from sectional interests. It has completely failed the nation in the present crisis. It has been more concerned to score party points than to link up with the national effort. Far from joining in it has stood aside and criticised those who were putting their shoulders to the wheel.

Consider the Labour Party’s record on unemployment alone, a sphere in which it might have been expected to be ready and able to help. Organised Labour has done nothing practical to help men out of work. It has put forward no constructive scheme to solve a gnawing problem. The Labour-Socialists have done nothing but talk, as if the Kruger of unemployment could be killed by mouths. And once again words will be the total “gain” from Mr. Holland's no-confidence motion —pages of Hansard to set against a waste of time and public money.