COALITION POLICY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 254, 24 September 1935, Page 9

COALITION POLICY

MR DOWNIE STEWART’S VIEW. “MEND, NOT END.” DUNEDIN, Sept. 23. ' “While the Labour Party and the Democrats wish to end the Government, I wish to mend it,” said Hon. W. Downie Stewart at the outset of a policy speech to-night. “In order to achieve this object I am standing as an Independent Nationalist, reserving the same right of free criticism that I have exercised the last three years, but giving general support to the Government, except where I differ from them on fundamental principles contained in parts of their legislation. “I think for various reasons it wopkl he a mistake to oust the present Government at the present time. In the first place it seems clear that we are emerging with some success from the long depression, and experience shows that political changes and uncertainty check business recovery and enterprise. There are signs of recovery on all hands whether we look at the trade figures, the hanking figures, factory production, or other indications which mark the trend of events. It is true that the recovery both in this country and elsewhere is local in its nature and may not maintain itself. In fact, my opinion is that nothing but restoration of world’s trade can restore prosperity on a wide basis, and that until world trade is restored there will continue to he millions of unemployed in various parts of the world. But so far as New Zealand is concerned the Government is entitled. to credit for having faced the position with courage and for having done many unpopular but necessary things if our financial position was not to get entirely out of hand. NECESSARY THINGS. “During recent years I have served as a Minister in three different Cabinets, and I have therefore a real and genuine sympathy for the men who have to do the job in hard times. I left the Ministry because I differed from it on the exchange question and because the Prime Minister had just previously pledged himself not to interfere with it. But in view of the crisis the country was facing I have refrained from any attempt to embarrass the Government or to encourage political confusion or instability. Retrenchment, curtailment of expenditure, and economy are always unpopular, but the countries that are emerging most successfully arc those which have not shirked the necessity for doing these things. “MENDING” PROGRAMME. “In the first place Cabinet requires to be reconstructed,” said Mr Stewart in elaboration of his desire to “mend” the Government. “Had this been done effectively in response to public demand some time ago it is possible that much of the existing discontent would not have arisen. I am able to take an impersonal and objective view of this matter, and can speak freely, as I know the Cabinet from both the inside and outside. One difficulty is that the Prime Minister is too passive and the Minister of Finance is too active; and it is contrary to constitutional practice that real and nominal authority should be in different hands. Moreover, the fact that a layman is nominally Attorney-General really means that this high legal office is in effect vacant.

“In the second place the Government requires to be checked in so far as some of its legislation has forced through measures without any adequate consideration of the views of its own supporters, apart altogether from the criticism of responsible bodies and citizens. This is a serious matter liecause some of those items of legislation violated the fundamental principles on which the parties making up the Coalition were based. In my view the object aimed at could have been reached by methods that did not violate the principles of public good faith.

“It may be necessary to form a left or right wing of the party to insist that the Government gets back on to right lines. If. as appears probable as a result of this confused election, a number of Independents and groups of Moderates are returned to the House, and if they constitute a majority of the House, it should be possible out of these elements to fortify and re-create the National Party on such a basis as to restore the principles of sound legislation.

“There is in the present Nationalist Party a large body of representation reflecting the soundest and best elements in the community, but on some occasions it has been over-borne into passing measures which seem to me dangerously unsound or unfair. Rising prices and returning prosperity may temporarily blind the country to the fact that in some of our legislation fundamental issues of right and wrong have been ignored, but believe me these breaches of principle will be cheerfully used by future and less moderate Governments as precedents for greater increases into the realms of repudiation. TWO-PARTY SYSTEM.

“It may be asked wiry was it that holding such views I did not leave the party ? My answer is that any alternative in sight, was worse and any new party would only have created political confusion in the midst of the greatest crisis known to modern civilisation. The fact is that, long experience has shown that our Parliamentary system only works satisfactorily. on'a two-party basis; it therefore seemed to me politically unwise to encourage the growth of a third party if the matter could be put right by other means, as I think it can. - “It seems to me that some of the new political groups that are arising fall into the error of thinking it possible to restore the" old system of unregulated and unrestrained competition. Even the Conservative Party in England have expressly abandoned this view. On the other hand Ido not agree with the Labour Party in their view that capitalism and private enterprise have so entirely failed that they must be abolished. In spite of the present widespread unemployment and poverty I think it is possible to restore the present system so that it will again yield tlio rich harvest of prosperity and rising standard of living for all classes that it yielded all through the nineteenth century. “Therefore, a middle course is likely to yield the best results, and the National Party most nearly approximates to this middle course.”