BY-ELECTION REFLECTIONS

Evening Star, Issue 22459, 2 October 1936, Page 8

BY-ELECTION REFLECTIONS

EFFECTIVE LABOUR ORGANISATION MR DOIDGE FORESEES HUGE FIGHTING FUND [Per United Press Association.] AUCKLAND, October 2. “ There is a lesson to be learned from the Manukau election by the nonSoeialistic forces of the Dominion,” said Mr F. W. Doidge in an address to campaign helpers to-day at the Auckland National Party headquarters. “We were out-manosuvred at every turn. For every worker we had my Labour opponent had 10; for every motor car we had ho had three.” Mr Doidge said that the organisation at Manukau was a foretaste of what would happen at the next General Election when Labour would have the benefit of union funds through compulsory unionism. The law permitted a contribution up to a shilling a week, but, if the average were sixpence this would yield £500,000 in a year. He said that it was no good to sit back and await the swing of the political pendulum and a laissez faire policy was suicide. The Socialists would spend the next two years organising as never before, and, with a £1,000,000 fighting fund, would build up an almost impregnable position. If they were successful in the next election there would be a Socialist Government in power in perpetuity. . , Mr Doidge said that the National Party must build now, and quickly, or it would pay a penalty no sane person would care to contemplate.