MR DOIDGE REPLIES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 246, 15 September 1936, Page 9

MR DOIDGE REPLIES

EXPLANATION OF POLICY. ATTACK ON LABOUR. Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, Sept. 14. Portion of to-night’s campaign address- by Mr F. W. Poidge, the National candidate for Manukau, was dej voted to a reply to the recent Ministerial criticism of his platform. He referred to tho Labour Representation Committee as a Soviet possessing unlimited power, dictating the policy of the party and the Government. It was j the tail that wagged the dog, he said. | In their attacks on him on successive I Saturday nights at Ellerslie, the Min- | ister of Education (Hon. P. Fraser) [and the Minister of Public Works (Hon. R. Semple; sought to convey the impression that ho had fought Rotorua as a Democrat and that he had since changed his political beliefs and was prepared to follow Messrs Coates and Forbes as leaders. Neither statement was true. He had fought Rotorua as an Independent against the Democrat, Professor Corbin. He had stood as ail Independent because lie could nrft and would not follow the leadership of Messrs Coates and Forbes. Personally, he said, ho had nothing against either mail. Mr Forbes probably had more friends outside politics than any other man in the country, but inside politics his friends were few. He was an honest man in politics, but something more than a reputation for honesty was needed in a leader. Mr Coates was, in the speaker’s opinion, the ablest man in Parliament to-day, but he had lost touch with the people. He had made a god of efficiency, and during the depression he had succeeded in keeping the country solvent. He had become hard, aloof, and intolerant, but a year or two in the political wilderness would have a softening and humanising effect. That he would in the course of time establish a comeback as a political leader was a definite possibility. “I am an anti-Socialist,” said Mr Doidge. “We have a Socialist Government in power, elected on a minority vote of the people. To approach the next general election with a division of forces will be to make a present of the Treasury benches to the Socialist Party for another three years. A consolidation of the anti-socialist forces will turn the Socialists out of office. To achieve this purpose a new National Party has been established. It is a new organisation with new ideals and a new leader who will be neither Mr Forbes nor Mr Coates.

“There is nothing inconsistent in my association with the new party,” Mr Doidge continued. “I have worked hard to bring it into being, so that I occupy a different position from that of my opponent, Mr Osborne. He is only a pawn in the game; he dare not give a promise to the electors outside the set policy of the soviet, that body altogether outside Parliament, the Labour Representation Committee, for fear of being pulverised and steamrolled out of existence. It is the soviet I attack, not the puppet of the soviet.” Mr Doidge referred to Parliament as a glorified parish pump. Its Ministers had become swollen-headed with power, and lie warned the elector!; against sinking in the quicksands of further industrial legislation. A vote of confidence in the speaker and the new party was carried by acclamation without a dissentient.