MANUKAU BYELECTION

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 14 September 1936, Page 9

MANUKAU BYELECTION

HON. P. FRASER’S CRITICISM

MK J’. W. DOIDGE’S POLITICS

(United Press Association)

AUCKLAND, 13th September

Caustic' comment on the past and present political affiliations of Mr F. W. Doidge, the National Party candidate for Manukau, was made by the Minister of Education, the Hon. P. Fraser, in an address at Ellerslie. “I am trying to understand what he is up to, to what he stands for, what new party he belongs to, and what people belong to it,” said thp Minister. “Is it the National Party, Democrat Party, or Doidge Party? I confess 1 am mystified, and 1 believe the electors are mystified too. Mr Doidge started as a Democrat, but the Democrats no longer exist. They were like the boy who stood dn the burning deck. The deck has disappeared under them and now they keep bobbing up under all sorts of names. What 1 would like to know is, is Mr Doidge standing as a candidate of the National Party, and is he its leader or not?

“It seems to me they all want to be leaders —Messrs Forbes, Coates, Poison and Broadfoot. They are like a Portuguese army, all officers and no rank-and-file. What is more, there is not likely to be any rank and file. Has Mr Doidge the confidence of Mr Forbes as Leader of the Opposition, or of Mr Coates? If not, who is behind him?”

Mr Fraser went on to say that apparently there was a general rallying of reactionary forces behind Mr Doidge, but he wanted to know what party they' represented. Did Mr Doidge support Messrs Forbes and Coates in their attitude to Labour’s policy, or was he a Democrat masquerading under the name of a Nationalist? No word had come from Mr Forbes or Mr Coates, and it was natural to ask whether they were supporting him. Presumably Mr Doidge didn’t expect their support in view of things he had said about them in the Rotorua campaign.

Mr Fraser quoted a number of newspaper extracts in which Mr Doidge was reported to have said that Mr Forbes was being treated as a political nonentity and a rubber stamp, that New Zealand had been under Soviet rule and Mr Coates head of the Soviet, and that he wished he could relegate both to a long political retirement on the hardest back benches in the House. Mr Fraser also quoted from an article by Mr Doidge in “Smith’s Weekly” to the effect that Labour gained power because the electors were determined to rid themselves of the Forbes-Coates administration, and that if Mr Savage turned the key on Parliament like Cromwell and gave the country a legislative rest for three years his name would be forever blessed. “Then why does he want to get. into Parliament?” asked Mr Fraser. “It is an insult to the intelligence of the electors to ask them to vote for something he doesn’t believe in himself.”