The Timaru Herald MONDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1940 Political Unity Essential

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21576, 12 February 1940, Page 6

The Timaru Herald MONDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1940 Political Unity Essential

fpiTE statement issued by the Leader of the * Opposition after a caucus meeting of Parliamentary members of the National Party at the end of last week reaffirmed the determination of the Opposition to place active prosecution of the war before all other objectives. Then it went on to say: “Our people are doing much already. They are prepared to do still more when given the opportunity.” It is pitifully evident that the Government is not yet willing to lower political barriers sufficiently to allow the full co-operation of the Opposition in the supreme national task of waging a successful war. Members of the National Party, along with comrades in arms from the Government ranks, are serving with the military forces, but this seems to be the only form of official co-operation yet open to members of the Opposition who represent in Parliament a large percentage of the people of New Zealand. If the war becomes a protracted trial of endurance, and it seems likely that it will, pressure of circumstance in the Dominion will compel a complete suspension of purely political activity, and this will probably be demonstrated at some future time by the formation of a government in which Mr Hamilton and his followers will have to be represented.

Since this is likely to be so, it is difficult to account for the present attitude of the Government which is practically cold-shouldering talented and efficient men whose most apparent shortcoming is that they sit on the wrong side in the House of Representatives. The indications are that questions of vital national importance will be discussed first by the annual conference of the Labour Party and the decisions reached there will later be translated into Government war policy. If this is so the position is extremely unsatisfactory. The Government was returned to power in 1938 because the majority of the electors had faith in Mr Savage and his Cabinet colleagues. The Prime Minister and others have said often enough that the Government was given a mandate by the people. That is true, and there is no need for the Cabinet to go for modifications or extensions of that mandate to the annual conference of the Labour Party. The faintest suggestion of extra-Parliamentary control, unwelcome at any time, is much less welcome in the midst of a national crisis the gravity of which has been emphasised so effectively by Mr Savage, Mr Fraser and other Government spokesmen. Since the scheduled resumption this month of the adjourned session of Parliament has been abandoned, it is almost certain that the Easter conference of the Labour Party will be given information which should have been mentioned first in the House of Representatives. It is not easy to reconcile this with the Government’s unquestioned attachment to the greatest democratic institution. The Government was elected to rule the country, to act for the country, and it requires no riding instructions.

Whether it causes internal party dissension or not, the Government should not delay in using the services of men who can assist the country's war effort irrespective of the political party to which they belong. There is no immediate need to form a National Cabinet, although that may come later. In the meantime it should be simple enough to allot responsible national tasks to some members of the Opposition. There might be protests from certain disgruntled supporters of the Government if this were done, but the Cabinet, in putting a successful war effort before anything else, could afford to ignore malcontents unable to see that this is a time for selfless co-operation, nothing less. The Government has been admirably resolute in some things and it should be so on this question, the most important of all.