TE AWAMUTU COURIER Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays WEDNESDAY, 30th NOVEMBER, 1949 MAKING A GOVERNMENT

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 79, Issue 7139, 30 November 1949, Page 6

TE AWAMUTU COURIER Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays WEDNESDAY, 30th NOVEMBER, 1949 MAKING A GOVERNMENT

THE CAMPAIGN has run its course, and the people are to-day exercising the franchise Democracy is working as the order of government is made subject to the will and direction of the people. Thus is the privilege of citizenship in a democratic constitution definable, and so also is its. responsibility. It passes to the people to not merc y judge the administrative trusteeship of those who have governed, but, more importantly, to influence and guide the course of future government . During the campaign there has been ample occasion and opportunity to account past performance and to estimate the promise or the assurance of the future. There have been fears and criticisms, faultfinding and promises. Such, of necessity, is the proper and rightful function of a campaign. But all recorded history is a record of a searching and sifting of policies and purposes, and it is no more than normal evolutionary experience that governments build on the foundations of the administrations they replace. That is the inevitable experience. Generally it can be regarded as a fateful election in New Zealand, and it has yet to be discovered whether the signs of political stability can be found. Since the Seddon Administration ended in 1906 there have been only brief intervals of stable government in this Dominion, and by far the greater part of the time has witnessed alliances which at best gave only stop-gap ministries. There can be seen to-day four main schools of servatives, Liberals, Labour, and Socialists—*a I in recent years directT y or indirectly allied under two main groupings. From the Liberal-Labour combination of Seddon the Conservatives under Massey held a cVear and working majority. But a gradual break-away of Liberals—- under the various title designations—<slowly disintegrated the politica l unit, so much so that the Conservative-Liberal combination under Coates had, by 1935, neither a common policy nor political strength. Labour under Savage was given a elenr r.nd workable majority, but within a few years the Socialist, or Left Wing, faction became manifest, and it has developed in recent years as a powerful influence over the nation’s affairs. So that as they go to the polls to-day most electors realise a perplexing future, and, just as in 1935, they realised the effects of an unworkable and impossible alliance between Conservatives and Liberals of a Governmnt kept in office by compromise policies, so also today can be detected a similar unworkable alliance between Labour and Socialism., with the latter exercising an undue influence over the nation’s destiny. In fact, many peop’e suspect that the Labour Administration has ended and that the Socialists have been able and will continue to subordinate the Labour policy as the terms for keeping Labour in power. To that extent they see in these elections the same conditions as existed in 1935. Whatever the determination of the polls may be, the hope is certainly widespread that it brings nearer to realisation a long-deferred alliance between the great middle sections of Liberalism and Labour. When that can be restored, then,—and only then can the country expect again a stable administration based on principles of government of the people by the people for the people.