THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, JUNE 24, 1924. THREE PARTY DIFFICULTIES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19206, 24 June 1924, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, JUNE 24, 1924. THREE PARTY DIFFICULTIES.

Mn Hkhtzog, already acclaimed aa tho future Prime Minister of South Africa, will receive, there can be no doubt, a commission from the Governor-General to form a new Government. The fact that he is the leader of the largest party in the Parliament which was elected last week entitles him to the opportunity of assuming office. But, although the Nationalist Party, under Mr Hertzog, is numerically the strongest party in tho House of Assembly it is still in a minority of nine as against all other parties. Tho bargain of mutual support between the Nationalist and Labour Parties was entered into with one specific object, that of defeating the South African Party at tho polls and even more perhaps of defeating General Smuts. That object accomplished, the compact came to an end. .It way a purely offensive arrangement without any application whatever to any contingencies that might arise after tho elections. If Mr Hertzog is to hold office ho can do so only through the support of the Labour Party. This has already been frankly admitted by him. Any suggestion that the Cabinet which

iio may form will include representatives of the Labour Party may be disregarded as inadmissible. It is contrary to the principles and the practice of the Labour Party to enter into administrative coalitions. The inclusion of Labour members in the National Ministry during the war at Home was an exceptional circumstance that was held to be justified by the exceptional conditions, but oven it was. regarded with some disfavour by a section of the Labour Party on the ground that it involved a. sharp departure from the principles to which its members subscribed. What, may be expected to happen in South Africa is that the Labour Party, numerically a weak party though stronger than it was in the last Parliament, will impose its will as far as possible upon the Hertzog Government which will bold office merely on the sufferance of Labour. Mr Hertzog will occupy a position corresponding fo that occupied by Mr Ilamsay MacDonald in Great Britain. He will hold office without the ability to exercise legislative power. This is a situation which is liable to be reproduced in all parts of the Empire where the three-party political system exists. The peculiar conflict of interests—national and racial among others-—in South Africa constitutes there a powerful obstacle to any fusion of parties, but the practical inconvenience and the over-present risk of political paralysis that attend the existence of three parties in a State should impress the public mind throughout the Empire with a sense of the desirability of the amalgamation of parties whose programmes arc so framed as to admit of accommodation in the general interests of the community and of the Empire.