DEMOCRAT PARTY

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 284, 28 August 1935, Page 11

DEMOCRAT PARTY

Press Comment on Netv Organisation

QUESTION FOR ELECTORS

Dominion Special Service.

Auckland, August 27.

"Mr. Hislop's handicap is that he 'enters the national sphere with no practical experience to guide him on the larger questions awaiting answer there,” says the “New Zealand Herald” in an editorial on the Democrat: Party. “That limitation reveals itself in his statement of the party’s aims and policy. He does not seem to realise the difficulties confronting him, and probably because he has yet to come to grips with the task he talks of the need of standing together. Every good citizen will agree that in the present time of economic war, as in the Great, AVar, in which Mr. Hislop fought and bled, there is no room fox- party schism, yet the practical effect of the Democrats’ entry will be to cut right across the largest and best political elements in the country, with the sharp edge of faction, weakening their whole front. The Labour Party awaits and welcomes the opportunity of stepping into the breach, and is most likely to profit by the irruption of the Democrats. AA’hy is Mr. Hislop willing to risk such a result? The head and front of the Democrats’ attack is supposed to be on the socialistic and bureaucratic tendencies of which they accuse the present Government, yet when their stated policy is examined it is found that seven at least of the planks of tho platform would involve socialistic and bureaucratic measures. The electors may well ask, if this is what the Democrats have to offer, why they are being invited to desert their old affiliations, and by their - division run the risk of having the Labour Party succeed to office.”

“LITTLE TO CONTRIBUTE”

Uy Telegraph.—Press Association

Auckland, August 27,

“If the people of this country believe that the Democrat Party can fulfil its promises it will put the party into office, but voters are distressingly sceptical, and many of them may reflect Unit in this depression no Government in the world has been able to set the whole of a nation's machinery working again,” says the “Auckland Star.” “If the party believes it can succeed where no other party anywhere has succeeded surely it is its patriotic duty to divulge its secret. .

“There are one or two attractive proposals. The reform of local government is long overdue and the failure of the Government to redeem its promises in this respect is deplorable. Parliamentary reform is another promising field of activity, but the social schemes that the party puts forward under the heading of ‘Public Health and AA’eifa.re’ are already in the mind of the Government, as the Prime Minister indicated in his Rangiora address last night. “In t.heir leader the Democrats have made axi interesting choice. Mr. Hislop is a comparatively young man with an excellent record in municipal government, and it is in the public interest that he should move on to the larger sphere. It is a pity that his fortunes are joined with those of a party which has so little that is definite to contribute to political exploration, but which may seriously complicate the exercise of the people’s choice.”

“PURELY MISCHIEVOUS”

Dominion Special Service,

Dunedin, August 27.

Under the caption of “purely mischievous,” “The Otago Daily Times” discusses the intervention of the Democrat Party in New Zealand polities. It states: “The party seems to be composed mainly of politicians who are disappointed because they are not generally taken at their own valuation and of aspiring politicians who have been attracted by the terms on which it is possible, or is regarded by them as possible, for them to offer their services to the electors.”

After examining Air. Hislop’s policy statement and failing to find, that any of the principles of,the party are new, the article concludes: “What, then, is the excuse for its thrusting itself upon the electors at the present juncture? There is only one alternative to the National Government and that is the Labour Pary. In these circumstances the organisation of any third party is purely mischievous. It is not as though this third party had any original programme to offer - the country; if it had there might conceivably have been some justification for its existence. And as there seems to be hardly a remote prospect of the success of any of its candidates at the noils, it pre-

sents itself simply in the ugly role of a wrecker.”

“WAIT A LITTLE LONGER”

Dominion Special Service. Christchurch. August 27.

Under the heading, “AVait a Little Longer,” ‘"The Press” says editorially: “The public knows now that the Democrat conference closed with a party in being led by Mr. T. U. A. Hislop, with a deputy in the North Island, Mr. AV. A. A’eitch, and another in the South Island yet to be chosen. This is nearly all that the public knows, for the assurances about ‘unity of purpose, enthusiasm fox - the task, and faith in the basic principles of true democracy,’ add only a few breaths to the stock of information about what the new party is and what it is going to do. . . .Though the new party proposes with cautious reservations and provisos to bring the New Zealand pound to ‘its true economic relation with sterling,’ it does not explain how or say what will happen if the-Central Reserve Bank has Its own and different views about this ‘true economic relation,’ but in case exporters and others are alarmed by what looks like (though it. is not) a pledge to reduce the exchange rate, they arc instantly offered a mystery consolation parcel—‘a sound and definite scheme to assist the individual primary producer - by a different liiethoxl to the fullest necessary extent.’ The mortgage problem is to be solved by creating ‘machinery to afford, the necessary temporary relief.’ without trouble or loss to anybody and without breach of contract. The machine is not unveiled. Unemployment again apjxears to be a simple problem. A definite scheme to perform a miracle is, of course, indistinguishable in electioneering from a- crude scheme to catch votes, and it. is crudity of this sort that marks the Democrat, platform. Nobody knows any more to-day than yesterday what the Democrats intend to do if they are given a chance, but; everybody is or ought to be a little wiser, though the Democrat policy is not plain. The Democrat game is for an exposition of the former. The public must wait a little longer, and it will wait with humour and perhaps even a little pity while Mr. Hislop translates ‘definite schemes’ into plans and specifications and costs.”

AUCKLAND COMMITTEE Mr. J. B. Donald Elected Chairman By Telegraph.—Press Association. Auckland, August 27. At a meeting of the Auckland provincial executive .of the Democrat political organisation, Air. B. Donald was elected chairman of the committee.