MR SAVAGE HITS AT NATIONALISTS

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 179, 16 August 1937, Page 6

MR SAVAGE HITS AT NATIONALISTS

'Nebulous Policy," Sharply Criticised PARTY'S DILEMMA "I think that the dilemma of tlie National Paity is the most remarkable condition in New Zealand political history," said the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage, in an interview in Auckland. ".It can find nothing bad to say against the Government, and it appears to have more difficulty in finding anything good to say about itself. j The party knows that the people have i had enough of its policy, and the leader, ' the Hon. Adam Hamilton, admits it and shows he is in a quandary as to framing a new one. "Since my return from the Imperial Conference, I have read some of the extraordinary speeehes the National Party leader made in the course of an organising tour during my absence," continued Mr Savage. "A few notes at random emphasise his difficulties with a nebulous and, I suspect, non-existent policy. ' As an example, Mr Hamilton told members of the National Club in Wellington that many of the old conservative ideas would not hold to-day, and perhaps it" was well that they should not. The poorer people must be helped and their lot made better. "It has taken the Nationalists at least seven years to discover that the poorer people should receive more consideration, even from Conservatives, who did all they could to keep people poor," said Mr Savage, "but how far would that belated discovery take him and the party in praetical politics? Mr Hamilton himself has given the answer — 'The whole of Labour's legislatoin, ' ! he said, 'is dominated by sympathy — more pensions, more sustenance, more charities, without thought for the other side of the story. We have to keep a balance between judgment and the emotional side.' Tbe Real Policy. "There you have the real policy of the Nationalists," commented the Prime Minister. "Are they interested in human needs? Do they believo that the balance should weigh only in their own favour? Such a belief is in their bones. There is no sentiment in business. "It»is right that the people should be told by the Nationalist leader that his party has no policy and has to call on business men to write one for them," continued Mr Savage. "I have seen another newspaper rCport stating that Mr Hamilton, when addressing the New Zealand Institute of Business Exeeutives at Auckland recently, said, 'We are looking for the future brains of our country am'ong the potential business managers. We want them to write a policy that will hold the business community together.' "In Wellington, however, Mr Hamilton warned professional and business men that the rural seats dominated tho position, and that if the party wanted to win the farmer must be given a place. Down in Dunedin Mr Hamilton showed himself even more plainly at a loss when he said it was hard to find a policy to suit the entire anti-Labour gronp. What was wanted was for the business community to produce a policy that would suit itself, and at the- same time would not be nnattractive- to the farming community. "By the time Mr Hamilton had reached Palmerston North he had become the leader of a new Labour Party," Mr Savage added. "Replying to an interjector who wanted to know the National Party 's policy, Mr Hamilton said; 'The National Party is true to nam.e, and doesn't belong to any one section of the community. We stand even for the working people.' "After all, there is no room for doubt as to what the Nationalists' policy is likely to be. It will be based on cutting down social services with a lean time planned for the majority. The people themselves know exactly what that means," concluded the Prime Minister.