COLD RECEPTION

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 165, 15 July 1942, Page 6

COLD RECEPTION

"PARTY BARGAIN" WAR ADMINISTRATION (0.C.) WELLINGTON, this day. "Rarely in my experience has any political action been received so coldly throughout the country as the recent establishment of the new War Cabinet" said the president of the New Zealand Farmers' L nion, Mr. W. W. Mulholland, at the 41st annual conference to-day. "Obviously it has been a party bargain," he continued. "It is equally obvious that it has not exorcised the party spirit. People generally are not expecting mucn from the move and perhaps that is to its advantage in that it has not high expectations to live up to. Personally I prefer to suspend judgment realising that its success or failure will depend more upon the spirit in which the various Ministers, new and old, take their job, rather than in the formal set up."

Mr. Mulholland said it appeared to be an extraordinarily cumbersome method of government. There was. for instance, a Minister of Primary Production for War Purposes and a Minister of Agriculture. One would imagine that the portfolio of each one of them fully covered the whole of the duties that were to be performed. The same applied to a number of other of the Ministerial posts. "But an examination of the position suggests that the number of Ministers in the domestic Cabinet who are outside the War Cabinet are so outnumbered by the War Cabinet itself that the natural development will be for the War Cabinet to be the supreme authority. If this does work out in practice it will be a tremendous step forward.

"I am afraid that the real disunity in New Zealand is between economic groups rather than between political groups, and this disunity is between officials rather than between the rank and file. My observation is that the rank and file are ready and willing to accept much greater sacrifices than are being asked of them, but they are not greatly concerned as to the getting of their exact 16oz of flesh, realising that the defeat of the enemy is much more important, and that failure to defeat him would mean that they would get a very short allowance indeed."

Mr. Mulholland said the new War Cabinet had a real opportunitv for leadership. "The people have been crying out for leadership since the beginning of the war," he continued, but so far the leadership has been very faltering. The time is long overdue for a positive and inspiring call Jo *-he people. Let no one be deceived by the apparent quiescence in the Pacific at the moment. Desperate resistance will have to be made to the enemy, and desperate action can be expected, for the enemy realises that he must win or perish."