POLITICAL SITUATION.

Waikato Times, Volume 105, Issue 17751, 1 July 1929, Page 9

POLITICAL SITUATION.

REFORM’S DOWNFALL.

A JOURNALISTIC HOMILY. (Special to Times.) WELLINGTON, Saturday. 1 The "Post" on the eve of the opening of Parliament prefaces some admirable advice to the contending parties with a brief review of the circumstances which relegated Mr Coates and his followers to the Opposition benches. “In tho pre-election Parliament, It reminds its readers, “the Reform Government had an assured, not to say unwieldy, majority, and it was able in consequence to ignore the pressure of the Opposition unless that pressure was supported by sections on the Government Benches. The position was not a healthy one, either for tho Government or the country. Thero was an absence of effective criticism. Tho Opposition could not support its objections with an effective vote, and the Government back benches showed no disposition -to break away from the attitude of passive acceptance, begotten of many, years in office, and make a critical examination of the Government’s policy. The consequence is known to everybody.” Bluntly speaking, Reform was undone by its own unwieldy majority and the insignificance of the Opposition.

And Now. Having delivered itself of this homily the “Post" proceeds to instruct the parties upon their duty to the. State- " The 1928 election is over, and the 1928 short session too,” it says. “The oountry Is not particularly interested now in how Mr Coates came to be put out or Sir Joseph Ward to be put in. It is primarily interested, in what Sir Joseph intends to do and the attitude of the Reform and Labour Opposition to his proposals. The general attitude Is known. It was declared during the short session, and has been enlarged upon since. Both sections of the Opposition have promised the United Party an opportunity to make good. . . There is no calL, therefore, to waste time with want-of-confldence amendments or such debates as relate to no particular measure. Such proceedings would be sure to fail and could do nothing to advance the business of the country.” With this view the great majority of the members of the House agree.