LIKE A COW!

Gisborne Times, Volume LXVIII, Issue 10732, 1 November 1928, Page 5

LIKE A COW!

MR COLEMAN ON UNITED

PARTY

SINCERITY OF MR CLAYTON QUESTIONEL. DIDN’T KNOW PARTY’S POLICY WHEN HE AGREED TO STAND!

“There are really only two parties in: the cogfcestj” said Mr Coleman at the City Hall last night, “Labor and Reform. But,” be continued, “there is another party which came up under a new name each election. This time it was the United Party, which claimed fit stood in the centre of 1 the road! Yes, like a cow.”—• (Laughter.) Mr Coleman went on to say that Mr Clayton, the local United Candidate, had used some peculiar logic in his campaign. The United Party was dead, only like the rooster whose head was cut off, and was still Happing—it didn't know it was dead yet. —(Laughter. As for Mr Clayton, ho had never been a Liberal and bad never claimed to Up, one. He hud always been a bitter opponent of the Liberals, and, therefore, he was safe in supporting tho United Party without submerging his principles. The United Party "was just as Tor v as was the Reform party; both stood for the same things and had the same ideals, and went into the same lobbies on a division. No one knew tho policy of the United Party. In fact, two days after Mr Clayton was asked to contest the seat he (the speaker) had been told by a prominent supporter that they didn’t know the policy, it had not arrived from Wellington.—(Laughter.) The party seemed to be depending on Sir Joseph Ward. A voice: “Who is the organiser?’ “lie is a gentleman we all know very well,” replied the candidate. Proceeding, Mr Coleman claimed that Sir Joseph Ward was overboomed as a political .sideshow. Whilst the ex-Liberal leader had been a. good finance Minister under the late Richard Seddon, lie bad been a dismal failure as leader of the Liberal party and had been practically defeated in his first election. Sir Joseph Ward had . evidently surprised the party with his £70.000,000 loan scheme, which evidently had not been discussed at the United Party conference. The Uniteds’ chief policy seemed to he to keep Labor on the Treasury Benches. However, ho believed that the great . progressive vote would go to tile Lao or 1 urty.