A WARNING VOTE

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 19, 23 July 1945, Page 4

A WARNING VOTE

The electors of Dunedin North, the Prime Minister claims, have given Labour authority to proceed with its progressive policy. They have, of course, done nothing of the sort. It is not within the power of the electors of one constituency to speak for the people of New Zealand as a whole; •they can only voice their own opinions. All that Mr. Fraser is entitled to claim is that a majority of the electors of Dunedin North have given their support to the Government on the issues placed before them during the by-election campaign. And even Mr. Fraser cannot ignore the fact that the majority which Labour obtained at the last General Election has fallen away very considerably. A seat which has been regarded for many years as "safe" needed only the change-over of some 400 more votes and it would have been lost. The summing-up of the result by the Leader of the Opposition seems to be very much nearer the mark. "The reason for the decision to vote National now of so niany people who previously voted Labour lies," said Mr. Holland, "in their discontent with the Government over its determination to complete its programme of State Socialism and interference with the legitimate rights and freedom of the people." If the big turn-over of votes" revealed in the Dunedin North by-election were repeated in every [electorate in the Dominion, then it is (obvious that the Government would jbe left without any authority "to proceed with its progressive policy." The result in Dunedin North is but one more sign of the growing dissatisfaction with the administration of the present Government and of the widespread apprehension that its socialistic legislative proposals have aroused. If Mr. Fraser chooses to give a nation-wide meaning to the by-elec-tion, then it must be a meaning that cancels the authority of Labour to proceed with any policy at all.