The Gisborne Herald. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED “THE TIMES.” MONDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1939 POLITICS AND THE WAR

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20093, 13 November 1939, Page 6

The Gisborne Herald. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED “THE TIMES.” MONDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1939 POLITICS AND THE WAR

The charge made by Mr. Nash that the Opposition is not co-operating with the Government in the Dominion's war effort is too serious to be permitted to pass without comment. If the charge were true there could be no more grave indictment and its very gravity requires that Mr. Nash.

who seldom speaks lightly or unthinkingly, should either substantiate it or else withdraw it. He has said either too much or too little. The first question that presents itself is what opportunity has been given to the Opposition, or. for that matter, to the public generally, to co-operate with the Government. An expressed desire to co-operate has not been peculiar to the Opposition, but applies to all sections of the community, but there is a widespread feeling that Mr. Nash’s interpretation of co-operation is blind obedience, and that he has no right to expect. He says that the Government accepted the offer of the Opposition to co-operate, but what form that acceptance took he has not disclosed. Certainly the Opposition was not invited to participate actively in the formulation of the Government's policy, although a Cabinet which is obviously weakened by having no member with war experience could clearly 'nave been strengthened by an appeal to the Opposition. In view of the economic and financial crisis which confronted the Government before the outbreak of war it is evident that the utmost co-opera-tion was necessary if the Dominion was to make its maximum war effort and it is for Mr. Nash to show how far active co-operation was invited and how far it was refused. When that has been done,' and not before, the Opposition will have a case to answer. In) the meantime, it would not be unfair to point out to Mr. Nash and the Government that had the advice of the Opposition and experts such as "the four colonels” been accepted the country would not have been caught in such a state of unpreparedness and would have been far better fitted to undertake the effort for which the war now calls. It will not have escaped notice that the Government has now found it necessary to seek the services of the colonels who previously were so roundly condemned, and it may be that Mr. Nash now realises that he needs the assistance of the Opposition which hitherto he has been inclined to ignore. If that is the case, then it is not likely that Mr. Nash will ask in vain, but he must realise, of course, that he cannot expect co-operation on his own terms — the kind of co-operation which Hitler and Stalin have been demanding from their neighbours and against which the whole war effort is directed.

Mr. Nash makes it clear that his real grievance with the Opposition is that it is continuing its party activities in the electorates. That this is the case is to he sincerely deplored, but once again Mr. Nash is apt to emphasise the effects and ignore the causes. When the Opposition in Parliament offered its co-operation in the war effort it naturally assumed that the whole effort of the Government would be directed towards playing its part in the war. On these conditions there could, and should, have been a party truce. In the guise of war regulations, however, the Government took complete control of the chief industries of the Dominion, not for the period of the war but for all time. By this step, instead of subordinating politics to the demands of the war situation, it threw the one dominating party issue into the boldest relief. This means that the Opposition is not being asked to co-operate in the war effort but to accept without protest the one thing to which it is irrevocably opposed—the socialisation of in-

dustry. It was this one thing, in particular, that made a party truce impossible. Time and again Mr. Nash has been approached and asked to put a period to the war measures, but he lias persistently declined to do so and he must, therefore, accept the responsibility for the position of which he now complains..

There are oilier things in which the I Opposition and the public cannot be ; expected to acquiesce. The proposed j expenditure of £70,00(1 on a new i broadcasting studio for Mr. Scrim- i geour is one, and the maintenance of j

more than 20,000 men on unproductive public works is another. These are

not war measures but the negation of them. The greatest contribution which New Zealand can make towards

the war effort is to increase its farm production, but the policy of the Government in regard to public works and other matters makes this impossible. Mr. Savage says that “if private enterprise cannot provide the production , the Government will have to consider other methods of doing the job.” He insists that is not a threat to private ownership, but it certainly looked like it. In any case, Mr. Savage overlooks the fact that during a cen-

tury of progress private enterprise in New Zealand, through good times and bad, continuously expanded production and that it was not until the policy of his Government was put into operation that production commenced to decline. To-day, unquestionably, there is an urgent need for co-opera-tion in the war effort but it is precisely because, in some directions at least, the Government's policy is not assisting the war effort that it has no right to expect blind acceptance of all its

measures.