POLITICAL UNITY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24945, 18 June 1942, Page 2

POLITICAL UNITY

It is to be apprehended that the public will be not more than mildly interested in the report that the conversations between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition concerning proposals for the establishment of political unity in the Dominion have been resumed this week. It would be otherwise if it were possible to suppose that the conversations may be productive of any practical result. There is little reason to doubt that the majority of the people of the Dominion are strongly of the opinion that in the national interest, the prosecution of the war should be entrusted to a non-party Government which would consist of the most capable members of Parliament. If it might be argued that the country has already been nearly three years at war and that the Government, which came into office before the war began, has managed passably well, the clear answer is that the war has within the past six months been brought closer to the shores of New Zealand than it was before, that the integrity of the Dominion was not at any time in the country's history threatened as it is now, and that a situation has been developed in w,hich it is most desirable that the best brains in Parliament should, irrespective of party affiliations, be employed in the national administration. The Prime Minister himself entertains this opinion and has publicly stated his adherence to it, but is precluded by his obligations to his party from the adoption of a course that would be in accordance with it. As an alternative he offers to the Leader of the Opposition a seat in the War Cabinet and he would be prepared also to appoint to the War Cabinet a limited number of prominent men, who are not members of Parliament but would be representative of various interests in the community. The Leader of the Opposition has already and repeatedly declared that a proposal of this nature is wholly unacceptable. The War Cabinet, as he has pointed out, has limited powers. And, while it includes two members of the Opposition, they are not members of the Government. Behind the War Cabinet stands a party Government of no marked efficiency. The whole position is one which is unparalleled in any other country. But while the Prime Minister, at the instance of his party, is obliged to reject the idea that a National Government, to the formation of which he is himself favourable, should be created, the Leader of the Opposition pleads for a National Government and rejects the suggestion that an extended War Cabinet with restricted functions is a satisfactory substitute for such a Government. In these circumstances it is necessarily in an unreal atmosphere that the conversations between Mr Fraser and Mr Holland are held and it seems inevitable that they must be fruitless.