BY-ELECTION LESSONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23002, 3 October 1936, Page 10

BY-ELECTION LESSONS

THE FORCES OF ANTI-SOCIALISM NEED FOR ORGANISATION LABOUR’S FIGHTING FUND (Per United Press Association) AUCKLAND, Oct. 2. “ There is a lesson to be learned from the Manukau by-election by the non-Socialistic forces of the Dominion,” said Mr F. W Doidge in an address to campaign helpers to-day at the Auckland National Party headquarters. “We were outmanoeuvred at every turn. For every worker we had, my Labour opponent had 10; for every motor car we had, he had three ” Mr Doidge said that the organisation at Manukau was a foretaste of what would happen at the nextj general election when Labour would have the benefit of union funds through compulsory unionism. The law permitted a contribution up to a shilling a week, but, if the average were sixpence, this would yield £500,000 in a year. He said that it was no good to sit back and await the swing of the political pendulum A laissez faire policy was suicide. The Sqcialists would spend the next two years organising as never before, and, with a £1,000,000 fighting fund, would build up an almost impregnable position. If they were successful in the next election there would be a Socialist Government in power in perpetuity. Mr Doidge said that the National Party must build now, and quickly, oi it would pay a penalty no sane person would care to contemplate.

“EXAMPLE AND WARNING ” LABOUR POLITICAL MACHINE “MOST PERFECT OF ITS KIND” (Per United Press Association) WELLINGTON, Oct. 2. Mr C. H. Weston, K.C., chairman of the Dominion Executive of the National Party, in a statement on the result of the Manukau by-elec-tion, said that in his view the figures of the voting showed the beginning of the swing away from the existing Government, which seemed to be inevitable in New Zealand politics This was the result of the system which had been more and more followed in the last 30 years of Governments taking a hand in the voters’ private affairs. In consequence, a Minister spent most of his administrative day making semi-judicial decisions between two sets of opposing interests, one of which his decision would mortally offend because its pocket was affected. In a country with a small population this position was accentuated by the fact of their being so close to one another. “ The careers of New Zealand Ministers during the last 20 years,” said Mr Weston, “ bear out this opinion, as their lives do not seem to extend much beyond one Parliament. The election was very keenly fought, and so far as the National Party is concerned its candidate "was good, the organisation was excellent, and the co-operation between the Parliamentary Party and the Dominion and Auckland Executives of the warmest character. “ But we must take off’ our hats to the Labour organisation,” said Mr Weston. “ I suppose the New Zealand Labour political machine to-day is probably the most perfect of its kind in the world Everything was attended to down to the last detail. With the contribution from the compulsory unions, its funds are ample and it can afford, including trade union organisers as distinct from secretaries, to have over* 200 organisers working in New Zealand at the present time, keen, efficient and well paid. To the National Party it is an example and a warning.”