FEAR OF THE WRATH TO COME

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 106, 7 May 1931, Page 12

FEAR OF THE WRATH TO COME

"Mr, Coates and his advisers have certainly framed their reply with an ■eye to the General Election, patting themselves on the back in the approved Tory style, and laying claim to democratic virtues heretofore quite unsuspected; but the terms of the refusal are dictated quite as much as the refusal itself by a. consideration that is none the less obvious for its conspicuous absence from the reply," says the "Grey River Argus" (Labour). "The obvious truth is that the Reform Party are quite as scared as the United Party over the results of their combination during the session they devoted so completely to the reduction of wages and salaries throughout the length and breadth of the land. What they equally fear is the judgment which the people are going to pass upon their- handiwork when it comes to the General Election. So far as a refusal of open association may tend to shoulder the main responsibility upon 'Mr. Forbes and. his party, Mr. Coates and his followers arc only too anxious to let the United Party hold tho baby. They accuse them of becoming adepts in the art of political jugglery. It was only fohavc been expected1 that, once fusion h:id boon .ird^iMl to .li<j injudicious, with the nt»te of public-, feeling what if. is, the Reformers would not fail to defend their decision with quite altruistic political doctrine, but it is safe to say: every fair-minded person will

perceive that if the Reform Party were really actuated by the democratic pollicy they profess in their reply, the fusion business, if it ever wore launched, would have been given very short shrift indeed, instead of being the subject of so much negotiation and deliberation."