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Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 300, 15 September 1936, Page 10

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Labour Representation Committee MR. F. W. DUIDGE’S ATTACK I A By Telegraph—Presa Association. Auckland, September 14. Portion .of to-night’s campaign address, by Mr. F. w. Doidge. the National candidate for Mauukau, was devoted to a reply’to recent Ministerial criticism of his platform. He referred to the Labour Representation Committee as a Soviet possessing unlimited power, dictating the ’ policy of the party and the Government, it was the tall that wagged the dog. he said, in their attacks on him on successive Sat urd ay nights at Ellerslie, the Minister of Education, Hon. P. Fraser, and the Minister of Public Works. Hoti. R ■Semple, sought to convey the irnpres-' siou that he had fought Rotorua as a Democrat and that he had since changed his political beliefs and was prepared to follow Messrs. Coates and Forbes as leaders. Neither statement was true. He fought Rotorua as an independent against the Democrat. Professor Corbin. He stood as an Independent because be could not and would not follow the leadership of Messrs. Coates and Forbes. Person ally, he said, he had nothing aghlust either man. Mr. Forbes, probably bad mor<j friends outside politics than uuy other man in the country, but inside politms his friends were few. He was an honest than in politics, but something more than a reputation for him esty was needed in a leader. Mr. Coates was in the speaker's opinion the ablest man in Parliament to-day. but he had' lost touch' with the people. He made a god of efficiency, and during the depression he succeeded in keeping the country solvent. He had become hard, aloof and intolerant, but a year or two in the political wilderness would have a softening and humanising effect. That he would in the course of time establish a come-back as a political leader was a definite possibility. i “I am an anti-Socialist,” said Mr. Doidge. “We have a Socalist Government in power, elected on a minority vote of the people. To approach the next general election with a division of forces will be to make a present, of the Treasury benches to the Social-! ist Party for another’ three years. A consolidation of the anti-Socialist. forces will turn the Socialists out of office. To achieve this purpose a *ew National Party has been established. It is a new organisation with new ideals and a new leader who will be neither Mr. Forbes nor Mr. Coates.

“There is nothing inconsistent in my association with the new party," Mr. Doidge continued. ,“I have worked hard to bring it • into being, so that I'occupy a different position from that of my opponent, Mr. (,\borue. He is Only a pawn in the game; he dare not give a promise to the electors outside the set policy of the soviet, that body; altogether outside Parliament, the Lai hour Representations Committee, for fear of being pulverised and steamrolled out of existence. It is the soviet I attack, not the puppet of the soviet.” Mr. Doidge referred to Parliament as a glorified parish pump. .Its Ministers had become swollen-headed with power, and he warned the electors against sinking in the quicksands of further industrial legislation. A vote of confidence in the- speaker and the new party was carried by acclimation without a dissentient.