LEADER'S STATEMENT

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 116, 23 November 1928, Page 10

LEADER'S STATEMENT

"NO COALITION"; WILL CARRY OUT ITS POLICY In a statement to "The Post" 'to-day, Sir Joseph Ward, Leader of the United Party, said he was more than; pleased with the.attendance at the cojiference of tho United Party last evening. They were unanimous, he said, iv supporting him in declining to enter/jain any proposals for a coalition with the Bcform Party. He had noticed that the United Party was being urged to entertain such a proposal, but he was quite satisfied'that it would bo a most improper thing for the United Party, the members of which were retuj.'ned pledged to vote against the conl inuance of the Keform Party, and he w> ould regard it, as far as he. was persona' lly concerned, as being a traitorous act to tho electors 'of New Zealand, wl io had so largely supported the new ;party, to entertain any such idea; am d it was, in his opinion, not by any me :ans the way out of what was in some re spects a difficult situation. Sir Joseph said he 'tvas pleased, speaking on behalf of- tho United Party, to acknowledge tho splendid way in which the party, ; although quite young, had been treated right throughout the Dominion; and 'he felt that it was his clear duty to. put on the Statute Book the policy that the party had,supported, even if It meant a further fight in the constituencies—that was, another eleetkm. • There was no mistaking the fact, anil any impartial olector (to whatever' party he belonged) must acknowledge the revulsion against the Befoi •m ■ Party was definite and absolute. They went to the country with a pal ty of 53 and returned from tho eleciaons with that party reduced to 26,: and the naturo of the defeat was wit? hout precedent in the history of the couriatry. Four Ministers, the Chairman oc £ Committees, the Senior Whip, and o^her good men in the ranks of the Boforin Party were unmistakably defea ,ted at the polls. For anyone to expoct of the United Party that it should start to kill its policy by joining with its defeated opponents was asking for what was impossible. , . ' The fact remaia od also, he said, that the four members who had been returned as Indepl indents had all communicated with h/im and had advised him that they w< >uld support him on a want of confidence motion; the fifth Independent mena?bor was the former Speaker, whom hi' j did not regard as a party man. l