A VOTE AND THE REASON

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 121, 18 November 1940, Page 6

A VOTE AND THE REASON

The Labour Party need not have contested the Waipawa by-election. The Government has an aihple majority in the House of Representatives already, and did not require an extra vote there to carry out its policy. The late member for Waipawa, Mr. Jull, was a member of the National Party, and that party had a customary claim upon the seat which did not involve a challenge that the Government was compelled to meet. That is to say, there was no challenge such as would have been given if ihe Democratic Labour Party had nominated a candidate. In the circumstances Labour might well have refrained from contesting the by-elec-tion, as the National Party did in Auckland West. This would possibly have saved the Dominion the expense of the by-election and, what is more important, the disturbance of national unity which such contests occasion. By nominating a candidate the Labour Party itself sought a contest and asked for a challenge. The challenge note was made still more emphatic when Ministers went into the electorate to help Mr. Christie's campaign. The Government must, therefore, accept the clear and unmistakable vote of the Waipawa electors against it as a verdict on its national policy. There is no doubt of the note of emphasis in the verdict. Mr. Christie (on the figures so far available) polled 1650 votes less than at the General Election and Mr. Harker only 440 less. Making due allowance for the smaller poll to be expected in a by-election, the Labour vote dropped by a third.

What does this signify? First, it is an answer to the Labour election slogan: "Labour brought back prosperity. Vote Christie. Let him help to keep it." The Waipawa electors do not believe that Labour brought prosperity upon a sure basis, and they prefer to have a National member checking the "prosperity" policy, rather than another Labour member supporting it. The war effort is not questioned, for Mr. Harker.supported all action taken by the Government for that purpose. What is most decidedly condemned is the Government's attempt to carry on a full peacetime programme when the war alone would place a sufficient strain upon the Dominion's finances and resources. The vote must also be regarded as a verdict, based on the results now clearly visible, upon Labour's peace programme. Warning of those results—of the consequences of excessive spending and the costly and inequitable Social Security scheme—were given in 1938; but the Government denied that they would come and voters accepted the benefits without reckoning the price. Now the price is known —a sterling crisis, import restrictions, credit and currency control, rising prices, and ever higher taxation. The Waipawa by-election plainly tells the Government that it is adjudged responsible for this, that it has bought passing prosperity at too high a price, and that the scattercash policy must be changed.