MANUKAU SEAT

Wairarapa Daily Times, 14 September 1936, Page 3

MANUKAU SEAT

THE NATIONAL CANDIDATE. MINISTER'S CAUSTIC COMMENT. AUCKLAND, Sunday. Caustic comment on the past and present political affiliations of Mr Doidge, National Party candidate for Manakau, was made by the Minister of Education, the Hon. P. Fraser, in an address at Ellerslie. "I am trying to understand what he is up to, what he stands for, what new party he belongs to, and what people belong to it,” said the Minister. "Is it the National Party, the Democrat Party, or the Doidge Party? I confess I ffm mystified, and I believe the electors are mys-’ tified, too. Mr Doidge started as a Democrat, but the Democrats no longer exist. They were like the boy who stood on the burning deck. The deck has disappeared under them, and now they keep bobbing up under all sorts of names. What I would like to know is Mr Doidge standing as a candidate of the National Party ? Is he its leader or not? It seems to me they all want to

be leaders —Messrs Forbes, Coates, Pol- ' son and Broadfoot. They are like the . Portuguese army, all officers and no j rank and file. What is more, there is not likely to be any rank and file. Has . Mr Doidge the confidence of Mr Forbes as Leader of the Opposition or of Mr Coates? If not, who is behind him?’ 5 j Mr Fraser went on to say that apparently there was a general rallying of reactionary forces behind Mr Doidge, but he wanted to know what party they represented. Did Mr Doidge support Mr Forbes and Mr Coates in their attitude to the Labour policy, or was he masquerading under the name of Nationalist? No word had come from Mr Forbes or Mr Coates, and it was natural to ask whether they were supporting him. Presumably, Mr Doidge did not expect their support, in view of the things he had said about them in the Rotorua campaign. Mr Fraser quoted a number of newspaper extracts, wherein Mr Doidge was reported to have said that Mr Forbes was being treated as a political nonentity and a rubber stamp, that New Zealand had been under Soviet rule, and Mr Coates was head of the

Soviet, and that he wished he could relegate both to long political retirement on the hardest back benches in the House Mr Faser also quoted from an article by Mr Doidge in ‘ ‘ Smith’s Weekly,” to the effect that Labour had gained power because the electors were determined to rid themselves of the Forbes and Coates administration, and that if Mr Savage turned the key on Parliament, like Cromwell, and gave the country a legislative, rest for three years, his name would be forever blessed. "Then, why does he want to get into Parliament?” asked Mr Fraser. "It is an insult to the intelligence of the electors to ask them to vote for something lie doesn’t believe in himself. ”—(P. A.)