LONG OR SHORT VIEWS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 69, 18 September 1930, Page 8

LONG OR SHORT VIEWS

In the official report of the Reform Party Conference there is brief and somewhat tantalising reference to the party's attitude towards the Government. Mr. Coates said the Reform Party was opposed to the policy of the Government as stated by it in its manifestos and on the hustings during the last General Election.

■ _ The Parliamentary machine was particularly inefficient at present, where there was a Government in power which took no responsibility and which was not strong enough to stand by its decisions and depended on tho support of the Labour Party. The Reform Party was opposed to the present Government's policies in connection with borrowing, railway control, purchase of private estates at inflated prices, sustenance pay, incidence of taxation, and other matters.

So far as it goes, the statement is clear, but it does not go far enough. It does not face the issue that must arise when the party must again go into the melting-pot of a General Election. That question cannot be evaded much longer. We are now nearing the end of the second year of the present Parliament. Little has been done which will assist electors to sort out their ideas of party. It is undeniable that the ideas of all except the party stalwarts are at present confused. Mr. Coates's reference to a Government depending on the Labour Party is only partly correct. That dependence has been qualified by the knowledge that the Reform Party would not permit Labour pressure to become unbearable. On the Unemployment Bill, for example, it was the Reform Party (except on the sus-t tenance issue) that stood behind the Government. It was the existence of the Reform Party in the background also that hindered Labour from attempting to do with Naval Defence what was done with land defence.

When the fundamental principles of politics are considered it must be admitted that the Government has had to rely on Reform support as much as on Labour. But there has been this difference: Reform has been on the aggressive and has forced Labour to record its support of those items of Government policy which it approved. Had Labour taken the aggressive and attempted to compel the Government to go the whole way with it, Reform would have been obliged to rally to the Government's defence—or face an election. Ad-, mittedly the Reform Party cannot support the Government in all its policy. The points of difference enumerated by Mr. Coafes are substantial. But if an enumeration of the Government's differences from Labour were also made it would reveal a greater gap. What does Reform propose to do in this matter? Will the party simply live from day to day without looking ahead, until finally the General Election diminishes the prospect of agreement between the moderate parties? Or will it realise that Government and Reform are much nearer in political essentials than Government and Labour can ever be and that it requires only forbearance and perhaps personal sacrifice to assure the formation of a strong combined party? Such a party is needed in these days when a definite and determined policy is essential to the country's welfare. Is its formation to be hindered by shortsighted party aims?.