LEFTIST PRESSURE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27092, 28 May 1949, Page 6

LEFTIST PRESSURE

PRINCIPLES INVOLVED MR FRASER’S CAPITULATION DEEP CONVICTION ON DEFENCE ISSUE PA WELLINGTON, May 27. “There is a matter of high principle involved in the Government’s decision to drop its own proposals for defence and to adopt the dictates of an outside organisation which has no responsibility to the electors whatever,” said the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Holland, in reply to the Prime Minister, Mr Fraser. “It is that principle that I am most interested in at the moment. The Prime Minister’s explanation of why he withdrew his original motion asking for the immediate apprbval of the Labour conference to introduce compulsory military training will convince no one, and he merely makes the position worse by now trying to make out that the withdrawal of his motion has advantages over its adoption by the conference. Surely Mr Fraser is a super-optimist if he expects the people to accept that,” added Mr Holland.

“His original request for approval by the conference of his .recommendations was put forward with commendabout courage and with that earnest eloquence of which we all know the Prime Minister to be so well equipped when he sets his mind to achieve any given result he wants. His recommendation to the conference was not a matter of hurried decision; it was carefully thought. out as a result of two London conferences and a wealth of inside information. He convinced his Cabinet and his caucus, and I must admit he did his utmost to convince the Labour conference- up to that point. His actions called for the strongest commendation from people of all political thought, for everyone knows the decision was not an easy one for him, bearing in mind his party’s traditional opposition to compulsory military training. “ Then Mr Fraser sensed the strength of the Leftists in the conference and instead of courageously standing his ground on his own deep conviction as to what ought to be done he did, as he has done on so many previous occasions—capitulated to the pressure of the Leftists. It would have been far better if he had said no more about it than to ask the people to believe that the withdrawal of his own recommendation has advantages over its adoption. The decision about the conscription issue is bad enough, but in my opinion there is an even worse feature—a matter of high principle — of last week’s pitiable episode, and that is the fact so strikingly made evident on Tuesday that the Labour conference is more powerful than the people’s elected Government, and even when the safety and security of the people is at stake the Government’s decision as to what is the proper course to pursue in light of all known dangers and necessities has to take second place to the decision of a sectional conference not responsible to the electors and not in possession of important facts known only to the Government. “All thinking people will deplore the fact that such power exists over any Government. It is this matter of principles with which I am chiefly concerned at the moment,” he concluded.