MORE TACTICS?

Waikato Times, Volume 109, Issue 18350, 9 June 1931, Page 6

MORE TACTICS?

The suggestion has been made in the English Conservative press that a number of Liberals under Sir John Simon are about to form an independent group for the purpose of bringing about the Government's downfall at the earliest possible moment, and that, if such a group should be formed, its members would have a very good chance of not toeing opposed by Conservatives at the next election. Mr MacDonald has given currency to the same idea with even greater emphasis which he is now anxious, very wisely, to tone down. For the suggestion is really nothing more, in plain language, than the offer of a bribe. It is a suggestion that Liberals who consistently work with Conservatives to turn the Government out will have a very much better chance of reelection than Liberals who work with the Liberal party. The proposal is rather insulting to Sir John Simon, but for whatever it may be worth it is not to Mr MacDonald’s advantage to advertise the temptations which are being thus ostentatiously displayed before the eyes of Liberal members to wreck his Government. As a matter of fact, Sir John Simon does not attempt to conceal his belief that the Liberal party should work with the Conservatives for the immediate defeat of the Government, and the bribe must therefore be presumed to be addressed rather to those Liberal members who have not yet detached themselves from the party, but might, it is supposed, be induced to do so for a consideration. The consideration is, in effect, that they should deliver themselves bound hand and foot to the Conservative party. It would be much simpler for them and more straightforward just to change parlies. In any event the offer is not a firm one; there can in the nature of things be no guarantee of the withdrawal of Conservative opposition, and it seems that the Conservative Central Office is opposed to the whole idea-