The Evening Star THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1942. POLITICAL JARS.

Evening Star, Issue 24326, 15 October 1942, Page 4

The Evening Star THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1942. POLITICAL JARS.

Holland’s motion of no confidence fn tile Government, based on its treatnient of the Waikato strike, will give •various members the opportunity of expressing their protest against that treatment in the most appropriate place. In the state of parties in the House it would be much to expect from it any greater effect than that. The provocation given to Mr Holland was extreme. As a 'member of the War Cabinet hg had stated that those responsible for the strike, which was condemned in the roundest terras by Mr Webb and Mr Sullivan, would be dealt with firmly and fearlessly under the law. In the event the men went back not only without suffering any punishment, but with State control of the mines, which seems to have been wholly unnecessary. On the other hand, the circumstances were difficult. For justice to be done would have required the punishment of the whole 1,300 miners, and not only of the 182 who were sentenced by the court. And the coal was needed. The real cause of the Waikato trouble, and of the Government’s lack of influence for controlling it, was bad training in responsibility dating back for many years before the war. Mr Fraser’s amendment to the motion was adroitly calculated to confuse the issue when he made it a plea for “ whole-hearted support for the Government and the War Cabinet in the conduct of the war effort.” Concern for the war effort was a point of emphasis in the motion itself. There was no difference between the resolutions in that effect, only a difference as to conduct. If the conflict is to be voted upon on party lines the sooner offended members relieve their minds, allowing the House to get on to other business, the better. Both parties are a little at sixes and sevens. Mr Langstone has resigned his High Oommissionership to Canada, disappointed that it is not the Ministry to the United States. He has intimated also that, when he returns to New Zealand, be will cease to be a member of the Government. Those resignations will not cause any wide sense of public loss._ Mr Coates and Mr Hamilton are off-side with the Nationalists, which may not mean much for long, and Mr Kyle has become an Independent. All this would have been exciting before the war, but the times make it trivial. It woiild be different if there? were any possibility .of an immediate election, but that is impracticable at the present time. All parties are at one on the supreme importance of the war issue, and thev will do well to make the best of other differences. Despite occurrences that have.'made it more difficult. a National Government is not less desirable to-day than it has been since the war bo^an. y