The Hawera Star. FRIDAY, JULY 31, 1925. “WANTED TO SELL."

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 31 July 1925, Page 4

The Hawera Star.

FRIDAY, JULY 31, 1925. “WANTED TO SELL."

Delivered e\ery evening by 5 o’clock Hawern, Mar.aia Normanby, Okaiawa,' Eltham, Mangatoki, Kaponga, Alton, Hurleyvilie, Patea, Waverley, Mokoia, Whakamara, Ohangai, Meremere, Fraser Road, an Ararata.

The New Zealand National Party is on the market. The only possible interpretation to put upon Mr Wilford’s latest contribution to the imperishable glories of Hansard is that his novel political venture, having failed to rouse the country to anything approaching a faint glow of enthusiasm, is now on offer to the Prime Minister —lock, stock and barrel—principles, platform and pledges, plus a handful of insecurely held seats and a few stray candidates. The National Party, Limited (very) is in liquidation, and such assets as it has are the Prime Minister’s for the taking. It is rather an inglorious failure; but it is what most people in the country must have expected.! WhenyMr .Wilford broke the new pennant at his masthead a couple of weeks ago, we suggested that the outcome would not be the National Party for which the, people are waiting. It is to the credit of the commander that, realising his mistake, he has struck liis colours at. the, first opportunity. The decision to do so must have taken some courage, for Mr Atmore and Mr Forbes, the one in Invercargill and the other in Stratford, have'been winning “confidence and support” for the cause of Nationalism, and one or two superoptimi&ts have announced themselves as Nationalist candidates. Their faith in politics and politicians may now be somewhat, shaken. But Mr Wilford has at least been honest, where he might have gone on attempting to bolster up a lost cause. As for fusion, this latest development is unlikely to bring it any nearer, although .we" 1 hold to our view that, to be .wholly .successful, an amalgamation. of the anti-Labour elements should be effected before the election. Mr Wilford,* in his -desire to be rid of “secret, diplomacy,” has revealed something more of the recent, abortive negotiations. .It. seems that, both sides were unable to get away from the idea that, the proposed merger was to be a business affair,' with a proportionate distribution of the spoils of office —if the use of a term so inelegant be permissable. To our wav of thinking that is fatal. The painstaking manner in which the position was set down in vulgar fractions borders on the ridiculous; but, to anyone whose heart is really fixed upon the creation of a new and virile political party, fit must be obvious that Reformers and Liberals will have to lose their indentity entirely before the match can be consummated. The idea back of the whole agitation is not to save the skins of two existing parties and, having cut up Cabinet positions into thirty-firsts, to dole out one part to the left and two to the right. It is to give the country the best Government possible, for the good of the country, not for the glorification of parties and politicians. A natural development, t.lien,.would be the selection by the new party 0 f its own leader and, by him, of the-Cabinet. That would be the National Ministry, not a Reform-cum-Liberal mixture. It. would contain men who had been Liberals and men who had been Reformers, for the simple reason that the new Prime Minister —even if he were Mr Coates he would still be, as Nationalist leader, the new Prime Minister —would choose for his colleagues the eleven best, men available. And the most bigoted Reformer will not attempt to argue that the dozen most able men would not include some members of the present Opposition. But to work the thing out by arithmetic is to make a farce of the whole business. Mr Wilford’s return from this ill-starred voyage of adventure, and his confession of failure, may not aid in reviving the earlier pourparlers between the parties; lint the revelations from both sides of the trend that these took will convince many electors that the jJroblem was approached from an altogether wrong angle.