POLITICAL PARTIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19719, 19 August 1927, Page 14

POLITICAL PARTIES.

A NEW ORGANISATION.

AUCKLAND BRANCH FORMED.

OFFICERS NOT ANNOUNCED.

A decision to form a branch in Auckland of a new political party entitled the United New Zealand Party Political Organisation, was reached at a meeting held on Wednesday evening. According to the report supplied the proceedings were enthusiastic and the attendance large and representative of every shade of political opinion. Mr. A. E. Davy, formerly organiser of the Reform Party in the Auckland Province, was unanimously appointed Dominion organiser. Although officers of the new organisation are reported to have been elected, Mr. Davy declines to give any information of their identity at present, and those who attended the meeting also remain anonymous. The tenor of speeches at the meeting was extremely critical of the Government's policy and administration. Branches of the organisation, Mr. Davy stated, were to be formed immediately in Wellington, t hristchurch. and Dnnedin. The "policy of 'he party is advertised elsewhere. It is reported that the new party is working in harmony with the National Party led by Mi G" W. Forbes, and the new' Liberal Party, of which Mr. W. A. Veitch is leader' and organiser. It is claimed also that former members of the Reform Party are supporting the organisation. SMILES IN PARLIAMENT. REFORM MEMBERS' COMMENT. [BX TELEGRAPH. —SPECIAL REPORTER.] WELLINGTON, Thursday. The reported split in the Reform Party, as suggested by the message from Auckland, was received with smiles of incredulity by members of the party in close touch with its intimate affairs. They said to-nigh that they were unable to point to any single member of the party now in the House who would be a likely recruit for the new organisation, while they further asserted that if a cave was going to be formed there would have been definite signs of it some weeks ago. It was suggested that if the new party was on such a sound footing it was singular that . the names of those at the head of it were not disclosed. "I do not know anything of it officially or unofficially," said the Prime Minister, Mr. Coates. when the message was referred to him. GIBES FROM LIBERALS. 0 POSITION OF MR. COATES. Some very uncomplimentary remarks about the new "United New Zealand Party" were made by speakers at the Liberal Party meeting in the Chamber of Commerce last evening Dr. W. H. Horton, who presided, remarked tht the late Mr. Massey had enunciated a Liberal policy in 1911. Unlike Reform, the Liberal Party had kept its word. Now some of the old Reform malefactors had made the discovery that the detective, public opinion, was after them, and they were trying to put the blame on to someone else. Mr. A. Hall Skelton, in speaking of the culture and mental powers of the delegates at the recent Liberal conference in Wellington, broke off to ridicule the newparty. "You cannot kill brains," he declared. "That is why you have got this bogus thing in the papers to-night. We warned you that Reformers would come out as independents at the next general election and that you must beware. We know what happened. A little body met at a home in Remuera last night. We had a gentleman friend present who told us all about it. The man who is behind it is one of the leading officials of the Reform Party, h man who thinks he can run the civic and political affairs of Auckland and be an Auckland Mussolini." "They put forward as Prime Minister a man who was politically and economically a baby in swaddling clothes," asserted Mr. Hall Skelton a little later. "They capitalised his good looks and his war record. Now, as you see in to-night' papers, they'have turned their own man down." A REVIVAL MEETING. THE FLAG OF LIBERALISM. The flag of Liberalism, or rather, that of the •newly-formed Liberal Party, was officially unfurled at a meeting of about 60 persons in the Chamber of Commerce last evening. The audience seemed hardly to treat the occasion with proper gravity. The speakers had to .endure friendiv but jocular interjections, and the only business done was to pass, a motion, proposed from the back of the hall, urging the union of "the democratic forces of this country." Dr. W. H. Horton, who presided, said that the "decent people" of New Zealand who were becoming more and more dissatisfied with the policy and methods of the party in power, were combining in an effort to secure a Government ex"pressing their aspirations. Mr. R. B. Spiers, the party's organiser, declared that the recent Wellington conference had included representatiyes of the farmers and the commercial and industrial classes, all of whom were dissatisfied with the present Government. The present movement was to revive not only Liberalism, but also the name "Liberal." Mr. A. Hall Skelton spent an hour and a quarter in relating political history and going through the new Liberal platform clause by clause. Time was .allowed for questions, in answering which Mr. Hall Skelton said that two or three men in the National Party always had been political humbugs. In reply to an inquiry about the Liberal Party's leader, Mr. Hall Skelton and the chairman both. explained that no choice had yet been made, Mr. Veitch having consented to act temporarily and Mr. Forbes having declined for the present to drop the National Party's title. On the motion of Mr. A. J. Lo\vden, seconded by Mr IT. V. Arlow, it was resolved:—"That it be a recommendation from this meeting to the democratic representatives in Parliament that they use everv endeavour to bring about a union of the democratic forces of this country on a common policv."