MANUKAU BY-ELECTION

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 September 1936, Page 12

MANUKAU BY-ELECTION

NAT. CANDIDATE ATTACKED

[FEB PBESS ASSOCIATION.]

AUCKLAND. September 13

Caustic comment on the past and present political affiliations of Mr. F. W. Doidge. the National party’s candidate for Manukau, was made by the Minister for Education (Hon. P. Fraser). in an address at Ellerslie.

“I am trying to understand what he is up to. what he stands for. what new party he belongs to. and what people belong to it,” said the Minister. “Its it the National Party, the Democrat Party, or the Doidge Party. I confess I am mystified, and I believe the electors are mystified, too. Mr. Doidge started as a Democrat, but the Democrats no longer exist. They were like the boy who stood on the burning deck. The deck has disappeared under them, and now they keep bobbing up under all sorts of names. What I would like to know is, is Mr. Doidge standing as the candidate of the National Party, and is he its leader or not? It seems to me that all want to be leaders —Mr. Forbes, Mr. Coates. Mr. Polson, and Mr. Broadfoot. They are like the Portuguese army—all officers and no rank and file. What is more, there is not likely to be any rank and file. Has Mr. Doidge the confidence of Mr Forbes as leader of the Opposition, or of Mr. Coates? If not, who is behind him?” Mr. Fraser went on to say that apparently there was a general rallying of reactionary forces behind Mr. Doidge, but he wanted to know what party they represented. Did Mr. Doidge support Mr. Forbes and Mr. Coates in their attitude to Labour’s policy, or was he a Democrat masquerading under the name of Nationalist. No word had come from Mr. Forbes or Mr. Coates, and it was natural to ask whether they were supporting him. Presumably Mr. Doidge did not expect their support, in view of the things he had said about them in the Rotorua campaign. Mr. Fraser quoted several newspaper extracts in which Mr. Doidge was reported to have said that Mr. Forbes was being treated as a political nonentity and a rubber* stamp; that New Zealand had been under Soviet rule, and Mr. Coates was ;he head of the Soviet, and that he wished he could relegate both to a long political retirement on the hardest benches in the House. Mr. Fraser also quoted from an article by Mr. Doidge in “Smith’s Weekly,” to the effect that Labour gained power because the electors were determined to rid themselves of the Forbes-Coates administration, and that if Mr. Savage turned the key on Parliament like Cromwell, and gave the country a legislative rest for three J years his name would be for evei*| blessed. “Then why does he want to! get into Parliament?” asked Mr. Fras-I er. “It is an insult to the intelli-] gence of the electors to ask them to vote for something he doesn’t believe' in himself.” i