SERIOUS RESPONSIBILITY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19434, 21 October 1925, Page 11

SERIOUS RESPONSIBILITY

(To the Editor) Sir > —II we are capable of reason we shall understand why it is our bounden duty to vote for Mr John Coull. Let us think seriously for one moment. How much do we value our country with all its inestimable blessings? We say wc have thought! Then, have we realised that Bolshevism with all the horrors that we know it has brought upon Russia is here in our midst? Perhaps the Labour Party in supporting the strike did not realise that it was instigated by Moscow, but the evidence is conclusive that it was! There is not one New Zealander in 20,000 who would willingly take his orders from, and have his laws made by, Jaroczky, Tomsky, and Dcgadov, yet —and we will give them the credit thlat perhaps they don’t realise it—these are the men whose policy the Labour Party is willing to hand New Zealand over to. Now it is evident everybody who thinks at all, and it doesn’t matter what side he is on, for the leaders of all three parties agree on this, that three-party government is no good to any country, tind certainly not to New Zealand. It doesn’t get the country anywhere and keeps it in a state of turmoil, and causes all-round dissatisfaction. If we are unbiased we must know that the late Mr Massey’s regime, had it not been for the war b.nd its aftermath, and its extraordinary untoward expenditure caused thereby, would have been one of the most wonderful eras of progress ever shown by the history of any country; even with all that trouble, unprecedented in the world, no country in the world came out as well, or suffered as little and certainly no other party then extant could hUve possibly done as well. The mantle of the late Mr Massey has fallen on Mr Coates—this is the general consensus of opinion throughout New Zealand; even the late Liberals admit this, and in many instances state their willingness to follow him if fruftcr election they have not a majority. We know there is not one chance in a million of their having a majority, and, therefore, by standing as a third party they are acting treacherously to their i country and are only playing into the hiaaffs of Labour. A third-party vote, unless the candidate is definitely pledged to stand for Mr Coates, is a vote for Labour. To ensure good government and sound government —and all those, who have homes, or who are getting homes, or a stake of any sort in the country, or have the least love for their country at all whnt that —we must give Mr Coates an absolute majority of candidates definitely pledged to support him and his policy. There is no doubt that in New Zealand, taken as a whole, he will get this majority, but to make Absolutely sure, it is wiser for the elctors to only cast their votes to those candidates who are absolutely pledged to his policy, and to consider anyone not pledged to him as against him. With all the unrest in the world today, this is no time to play with politics; this is no time for a third-party candidate representing no one in particular, and whose only role can be to interfere needlessly and uselessly, and help to cause stagnation. Wanganui will not be disfranchised if it does not return Mr Coull, for the policy of the Government is against spoils to the victors, but it will continue with that spirit which prevents it taking its right place in New Zealand ns the fifth city of the Dominion, and it will have an abiding and depressing feeling that it has not done its share towards that tide of prosper!tv and good government which New Zealand is bound to get when Mr Coates sets the same standard for everything in New .Zealand as ho has already set in the Postal, Railway and Public Works Departments. Mr Coates, following on what has already been taccomplished, and, let us hope, without haying to contend against all the anxieties of the late Government, will give New Zealand such an era of prosperous government as it has never previously known; but to Allow him to do this, it is essential for him to hA.ve loyal supporters. Therefore, in the language of the Prince of Wales, wake up, Wanganui, get out of the groove you have stagnated in so long. There is nothing personal in it—vote for the party that will carry Wanganui along on the prosperous wUve that is coming.—l am, etc., E. E. PORRITT.