ELECTION MONTH

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 78, 10 March 1943, Page 4

ELECTION MONTH

FORECAST BY MR DOIDGE MAY BE AUGUST OR SEPTEMBER Wellington, Thi Day “It’s just a guess, but I believe the General Election in New Zealand will be held in August or September,” said Mr Doidge, M.P.. in an address at the annual meeting of the Wellington Central branch of the National Party last night. There was an attendance <»f 190. over which Mr W. Duncan presided. Mr Doidge said it was expected that the Budget would be brought down in May or at the latest in June. The debate on the Estimates would last probably five weeks, and the decks would then be cleared for the election. The Budget would be full of promises; Mr Nash was a past master at that The National Party had known in 1938 that the job was a big one, because it had preached a policy of sobriety to an electorate that was politically inebriated, said Mr Doidge. But the last few years had served to eliminate the poisons with which the body politic had been saturated Sounder judgments would prevail.

The Labour Party wou'i fight the election on three main points, said Mr Doidge—the war effort, social security and the slump. “Yes. the slump will be dragged up. The bones will rattle. The skeleton will come out of the cupboard It was put across in the Christchurch East election and it is amazing how gullible many people still are.” It would be alleged by Labour speakers that if the National Party was returned it would wipe the Social Security Act off the Statute Book. Of course, it was quite impossible to do such a thing. What the National Party would do was to see that its administration was improved.

Labour speakers had painted a glam orous picture of what the Government had done in New Zealand’s war effort, but he claimed that when the history of the Dominion’s effort was written the story would be told of the sense of frustration that prevailed, of muddle and ineptitude. The Labour Government claimed to have a rehabilitation plan, but even after three years of war that plan refused to take shape. Failure to control the cost of living was another point emphasised by Mr Doidge, the Internal Marketing Division coming in for criticism.

Reference was also made bv the speaker to the Government handling of incidents detrimental to the war effort, quoting those occurring at Huntlv, Waikato. Westfield and Woburn. The Government, he said, had lost heavily in prestige.

“Our policy is ready.” he added “There will be no glamorous promises I think the people have come to realise that when election platforms come down it is time to look out. They will be suspicious of promises. Our policy will make an appeal to all'right-think-ing people.”