ELECTION NOTES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17333, 3 December 1919, Page 10

ELECTION NOTES

A FORTNIGHT FROM TO-DAY. Two weeks from to-day the fate of candidates for Parliament, and of political parties, will be decided by the- final arbiter public. As the last was a war election this -may be called the reconstruction election. The leaders of the two groat parties have issued their manifestoes containing the proposals they make to deal with the problems facing the country after the temporary suspension of domestic legislation. But while the platforms are divergent, it is noticeable that the one issue which draws the sharpest distinction between the two is very similar to that which divided them when the last election was fought, the question of attitude towards what is now termed " extreme Labour." -Mr. Massey has said emphatically that come what may he w "l not ally himself with a party of the type which claimed in last Parliament to be the only official representative of Labour. The leader of that party has stated that its services will be at the disposal of Sir Joseph Ward in attacking Mr. Massey. A clear-cut and specific renunciation of that offer by the Leader of the Opposition is still wanting. The definite problems folI lowing the war, soldier settlement, and j repatriation generally, housing, the cost ;of living, pensions, and financial reconstruction have already been attacked during the session. The present Government has done considerable preparatory work : towards the settlement of the problems, i Mr. Massey and his Ministers do not claim !to have settled the difficulties. But they have already made a courageous beginning, and have deprived their critics of much of the ammunition they might otherwise have employed. That being so, and ' the extreme section of the Labour Party ! having thrust itself so prominently to the fore the situation is strongly reminiscent of the days of 1914. when what was then known as the Red Fed" element played a similar role to that held by the official Labour Party at the present time. "INDIFFERENT" ELECTORS. An almost complete indifference towards politics on the part of electors has been discovered by Mr. Bloodworth, who made 'an announcement of this fact last night. He had heard recently of numerous people who had not made up their minds which party they would support. They knew ' little about many of the candidates, ana did not know for whom they would vote when it came to polling day. This regrettable state of affairs, said Mr. Bloodworth, was probably due to the electors having lost confidence in the old parties and to politics in the past not having produced much satisfaction. Those may be the reasons, of course, but there may be others to account for Mr. Bloodworth having gathered that impression. For instance; "I don't know" as an answer to a query touching the way an elector's vote is to be cast may be merely a gentle method oi ' saying "I am not going to tell - you.' i Also, it is possible that a further question | might lead to the discovery that the elec- , tor who did not know for whom he was ! going to vote had already made up hit i mind whom he was not going to support. jln any case, if the indecision were genuine, Mr- Bloodworth should not com plain. The man who has not made up hit mind should be easier to convert than the man who has. Therefore, Mr. Bloodworth has only discovered a fruitful field foi proselytising. ' i '•■ ■ ' ■ EVIDENCE FROM HANSARD. Fault has been found with Mr. J. S. Dickson by an opponent because he has not contributed much to the 1436 pages oi Hansard in which the debates of last session are embalmed. From that it has been deduced that he has not adequately represented his constituency. This is an error into which many of those not familiar with the working of Parliament fall— the error of imagining that only those ' members who make frequent speeches are upholding the interests of their constituents. There is much work done of which . no record finds its way into the pages of j Hansard. The House in Committee is ' not reported, and it is in committee that much of the significant work upon measures is done. There is in addition the work of the Select Committees. It is that which often helps to make the member's life a strenuous one After an all- • night sitting he may have to be in at- , tendance on" a committee at ten o'clock next morning, whether he feels inclined ' for it or not, and Hansard takes no notice of that circumstance. There are also the ; miscellaneous calls upon his time by cor- ' respondence with his constituents, and the routine of the private member's life. As evidence of his zeal or otherwise, Hansard is not particularly dependable. MR. P. FRASER ON THE WAR. Two interesting statements elucidating his views on the war were made by Mr. P. Eraser, sitting member and official Labour candidate for Wellington Central, in a speech he made a day or two ago. He is reported as follows:— The only force in this country that opposed conscription was the Labour Party, and then, after a moment's pause, he made a | significant correction. He said, "Xhe j Labour organisation.' " Extreme imj patience with any attempt to draw dig- < tinctions between their own coterie and the great mass of the workers of the Dominion is usually shown by Mr. Fraser and those associated with him in the official Labour party. Yet hero the force of irrefutable fact impelled Mr. Eraser to correct his usual identification of the two. He could not claim that Labour** as a whole opposed conscription. Disproof would have Deen too easy. The most he could do was to affirm that the Labour organisation of which he is a member opposed it, and he is no£ the only one who has remarked that fact. The second statement is: "We spent £70,000,000 on this war, and the best you can say for it is that it wss spent on the destruction oi human life."' Mr. Fraser was one of those Who divided the House last session on the proposal to make the. gratuity to returned soldiers four shillings a day. He cannot very easily separate the services of the soldiers from the objects for which the war debt was incurred. Therefore, the best he can say for the soldiers is that their energies were devoted to the waste of human lives. And with that estimate ot their services he approved of more than-doubling what the Government proposed to git a as a token of the country' gratitude i for these services. OPPOSITION, AND GRATUITIES. A curious light was thrown on the attitude of the Opposition towards the muchdebated question of soldiers' gratuities by Mr. T. M. Wilford in a speech he made at Lower Hutt a few nights ago. The question "Are you in favour of increasing the war gratuity to two shillings a day ?" was put to him, and Mr Willord replied " No. The House decided that it shall be Is 6d and there it rests. The Liberal Party suggested two shillings but were defeated. Then Holland having struck for sixpence and lost, struck for 2s 6d and expected to win." Mr. Wilford and his party " suggested " the alteration to the scale to the extent of over one hundred pages of Hansard, and an all-night sitting. The division taken on the amendment to make the payment two shillings was on strictly party lines with the exception of one follower of Sir Joseph Ward and one Independent on the Opposition side. The House decided it, despite the strongest efforts of Mr. Wilford and those with whom he is associated. And having cast the entire responsibility upon the shoulders of the Government, the Opposition, according to Mr. Wilford, intends to let the matter rest. Even if returned to power the party will not increase what it insisted with all its strength was an inadequate payment.