WHAT’S HIS PARTY?

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXXV, Issue 12965, 14 September 1936, Page 5

WHAT’S HIS PARTY?

HON. P. FRASER ATTACKS MR. ■’ . • DOIDGE. i . i DO MR FDRBES AND MR COATES SUPPORT HIM? CAUSTIC CRITICISM. fPress Association). AUCKLAND, Sept. 13. Caustic comment on the past and present political affiliations of Mr. Doidge. the National Party candidate tor Manukau, was made by the Minister of Education (Mr. Fraser) in an address at Ellerslie. I am trying to understand what he is up to, what he stands for, what tifciv party he belongs to and whit people belong to it,” said the Minister. Is it a National party, a Democrat party or a. Doidge party? 1 confess I am mystified and I believe the electors are mystified too. Mr. 'Doidge started as a Democrat, but the Democrats no longer exist. The; Hero: 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. V'hat I would like to know is: Is Mr Doidge standing as the candidate of the National Party ? Is he its leader or not? It seems to me they all want to bo leaders, Messrs. Forbes, Coates, Poison and Broadfoot—they are like a 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 tha confidence of Mr Forbes leader of the Opposition or of Mr. Coates? If not, who is behind Turn?” ■ V ...-. . .

Mr. Fraser went on to say that apparently there was a general rallying of the reactionary, forces beiliind Mr. Doidge. But he wanted to know wl:at party they represented. Did Mi Doidge support Mr. Forbes and Mr. Coates in their attitude to the Labor policy or v r as 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 ware supporting him. Presumably, Mr Doidge didn’t expect their support in view of the things he had said about them in the Rotorua campaign.

Mr. Fraser quoted a number of newspaper extracts wherein Mr. Doidge was reported to have said Ml Forbes was being treated as a political nonentity and a rubber stamp; that’New-Zealand had been under Soviet rule and that Mr. - Coates was the head of . the Soviet; and that he wished he could relegate both to long political retirement on the hardest leek benches in the House. Mr Fraser also quoted from an article by Mr. Doidgo in “Smith’s Weekly” to the effect that Labor gained power because the electors were determined to rid themselves of the Forbes and Coates administration and that, if M> Savage turned the kay on Parliament like Cromwell and gave the country a legislative rest for three years, his name would he forever blessed. “Then, vTiy does he want to get into Parliament,” asked Mr. Fraser. “It is”an insult to the intelligence of the electors to ask them to vote for something ho doesn’t believ* in himself.”