Manawatu Evening Standard. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1925. REFORMERS OR “NATIONALISTS”?

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 277, 27 October 1925, Page 6

Manawatu Evening Standard. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1925. REFORMERS OR “NATIONALISTS”?

As election day draws nearer interest in politics deepens and strengthens. Everywhere one goes the prevailing topic of conversation appears to be the probable outcome of the present appeal to the constituencies, and a generally expressed belief that Mr Coates is the one man best fitted to lead the country during the next three years. The bid that is being made by the Labour Socialists to gain political control cannot, however, be ignored. It is accompanied by wholesale misrepresentations of the doings of the political parties opposed to them, coupled with vigorous denunciations of the Reform Government. To counter their efforts and propaganda a steadying influence is needed, and Mr Coates is supplying that influence. His progress through the .country has been one- continual series of triumphs. By his plain, straightforward speech, his frank, easy manner, his evident sincerity of purpose and his generally honest bearing in dealing with the questions submitted to him, he has won the confidence, esteem and goodwill of many thousands of people during his election campaign, and, with the exception of a few “die-hards” associated with the Liberal-Labour Party, who call themselves “Nationalists,” and the Labour Socialists, practically every candidate, so far announced, seems prepared to accept him as his or her leader. In certain constituencies not unremotely connected with the Palm-

erston electorate, and in others further removed from us, there are, however, candidates who, professedly fighting under the Nationalist banner, have shown that, so far from realising the spirit and policy of the Nationalism they profess to support, the one and all consuming object of their candidature is to destroy the Reform Government and Party. There is, for instance, the candidate upnorth contesting the seat held for so many years by the late Mr Massey, w r ho declares that he would “sooner vote for Holland or the devil than for the Reform Government” and that, if returned, he “will vote with Mr Holland to turn the Government out of office.” Another amiable “Nationalist,’.’ contesting a seat held by a Reform supporter, has gone out of his way to paraphrase

verses of Scripture in condemnation of the Reform Party, and, when asked what he would do were he returned to Parliament, said he would say to th® Reform members: “Get you gone, ye dogs.” Down south yet another “Nationalist” has promised to vote with Mr Holland on a no-con-fidence motion to turn the Government outsof office. Yet the “Nationalist” Party was formed, or rather the name of the old LiberalLabour Party was changed by Mr Wilford, ostensibly for the purpose of uniting the anti-Socialist forces against the Red Eed element that i§ seeking to gain the political control of the country. 13ut the greater number of those who are standing allegedly as “Nationalists,” are actually playing into the hands of the Labour Socialists by splitting the moderate vote and thus giving the latter an opportunity of slipping in on the minority vote.

THE ONLY TRUE NATIONALISTS.

Tlie attempts made to throw the responsibility for the failure of the fusion negotiations upon the Reform Party have been ingenious enough in their way; but in their suppression of material facts, and in the absence of those confidential exchanges of opinion between the party leaders, which are necessary to the true understanding of the position, they are also highly misleading. The Prime Minister made his position clear from the jump. He expressed his willingness and his desire to bring about the fusion of the parties of patriotism and constitutionalism; and it was not he but the then Opposition leader who, in the latter’s words, “slammed and bolted and barred the door” against fusion, and immediately following his theatrical display of assumed indignation at Mr Coates’s attitude, announced the selection and adoption of several “Nationalists” as candidates for seats held by Reform 'Members of the late Parliament, thus demonstrating that insincerity of purpose which was at the back of the fusion negotiations, so far as his own party was concerned. Hollowing their failure to gain that political advantage over the Reform Party which appears to have supplied the true reason for their action, there was a noticeable change of front on the part of the Liberal-Labour members, and charges were hurled against members of the Ministry which, had there been any truth in , them, would have made the Liberal-La-bour fusion advocates particeps criminis in the acts of misfeasance alleged against Ministers, because those bringing the charges were in possession of the alleged “facts” on which the charges were based while the fusion negotiations were proceeding: Added to that, these self-styled “Nationalists,” with a certain amount of duplicity, are asking the public to believe that they are ready to support Mr Coates as the Leader of the House and of a Nationalist Party, while' they are unsparing in their condemnation of the Reform Party of which he is the leader. This is noticeably the case in electorates in which they are opposing Reform candidates who have previously held the seats they are contesting. They virtually adopt the slogan that a vote for themselves is a vote for Mr Coates. Mr Coates has, however, made it plain that he does not trust them and, in the appeals he has made on the subject, he has asked the electors to stand by the officially selected candidates nominated in the Reform interest, and supporting his policy, which is a truly national policy,and one which gets away from the spirit of party politics, urging' wider vision and united effort in the further development of the country and of those humanitarian schemes which have been so consistently maintained and extended during the Reform regime, "together with the maintenance of the Imperial connection and of that loyalty to the Crown and Constitution which have ever been the distinguishing characteristics of the people of New Zealand. If the electors desire to see Mr Coates maintained in his present position as Prime Minister and leader of our young nation, they will do well to discard both Nationalist, Liberal and Labour candidates in favour of straight out Reform supporters who have been officially endorsed as such by Mr Coates as the Leader of the Reform Party. They are the only true Nationalists.