Manawatu Evening Standard. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2, 1930. LABOUR THE DICTATOR.

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 107, 2 April 1930, Page 6

Manawatu Evening Standard. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2, 1930. LABOUR THE DICTATOR.

“Parliament is no place for Independents,' 5 says Mr M. J. Savage, M.P., Deputy-Leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party; “they are only a humbug.” Mr Savage was opening his mind at a district convention of Labour supporters at Ngatea in the Thames district when he made that assertion, but more important from the political standpoint was his statement that “if the Government did not deliver the brand of ‘goods’ required by the Labour Party when the next Parliamentary session opened, the Government would find itself without a home” (the quotation is from an Auckland special message published last week). In explaining the position of the Labour Party in its relationships with the Government, Mr Savage said that “the Government had survived one session of Parliament to date with the assistance of the Labour Party. Sometimes the Labour Party had voted for something they clid not want, having been compelled to choose the lesser of two evils,” but unless it (the Government) was now “prepared to deliver the goods, Labour would take the first opportunity of putting it out of office.” Apparently the Labour Party expects Mr Coates to move a vote of no-confidence when Parliament opens. Mr Savage says he will “undoubtedly” do so. But Mr Savage is not exactly in Mr Coates’s confidence, nor would he appear to be altogether in his leader’s confidence, for, from his recent utterances on the political situation, we gather that it is Mr H. E. Holland’s intention to move a vote of no-con-fidence in the Government and that he (Mr Holland) expects to carry it, with the help of the Independents and the disgruntled members of the Government following, by some 26 or 27 votes against the Government’s 24, this excluding the members of the Opposition (Reform) Party. And, if Mr Holland succeeds in carrying that vote, he expects, and regards it as a constitutional right, that he should be sent , for to form a new Ministry. But no such “right” would constitutionally be his, were he successful in carrying his vote, nor would the Governor-General necessarily send for Mr Holland, for he is merely the leader of a party constituting only a quarter of the strength of the House of Representatives. In the event of a Government defeat, Sir Joseph Ward, as the Leader of the United Party, would undoubtedly ask for a dis-

solution, and the probabilities are that the dissolution would be granted, as Sir Joseph Ward would point out that, with three parties in the House, all opposed to each other and two out of the three having been defeated on votes of no confidence, the third party (Labour) could not be expected to carry on as it was representative of less than a fourth of the constituency. Mr Holland would not be in the picture at all unless, after an appeal to the country, Labour became the strongest party of the three. Mr Coates is not, we believe, anxious to precipitate an appeal to the country, and it is doubtful if, at the present time, such an appeal would remedy the existing situation. The Labour Party might possibly increase its numbers. On the other hand, its hold of some of the seats it gained in 1928 is not too secure, and they may easily revert to the parties formerly holding them, for, whatever faults may be attributed to the Reform or United parties, we are decidedly of the opinion that the country does not desire to see the administration of its affairs handed over to our Labour Socialists. In Labour circles it has been suggested that there will be a general election in July or August, but the party forcing that election on the country is likely to suffer the most of the three at the hands of the electorate. The Government may avoid the defeat which both Mr Savage and Mr Holland appear to have visualised, with the support of the very members Mr Holland expects to find entering the division lobby with him on his no-confidence motion. But, it may be taken for granted that Mr Savage has served the Government with a notice to quit, unless it is prepared to continue in office and accept the dictation of Labour. “If,” Mr Savage says, “the Government proposed to do what the Labour Party wanted, the Labour Party was not likely to vdte against it.” The Tarnell by-election may, however, have an important bearing upon the political situation. If the Government candidate, whoever he may be, wins the seat, it will be accepted as a vote of confidence in the United Party, but if, through more than one candidate standing in the Reform interest, the seat which properly belongs to Reform goes to Labour, the psychological effect throughout the country' will be damaging alike to the prestige of the Government and the Reform parties, and prejudicial to both at any general election which may be forced upon the country within the next few months.