LABOR OPPOSITION.

Hokitika Guardian, 26 June 1926, Page 1

LABOR OPPOSITION.

plans IN PARLIAMENT. WELLINGTON, June 24. The new position of Labour as the official Opposition produced some in- , tcresting references during the Address-! n-Reply debate, the first being j a declaration from Mr H. E. Holland as to the policy which the Opposition e would 'adopt. The opening of this !1 Parliament, ho saitl, had produced B significant changes among the parties. It was inevitable that the middle party " should disappear from prominence, • leaving a clearer lino of demarcation ! to be drawn between Government and Opposition. Labour found itself for the first time in the country’s history ■ in the position of official Opposition, and it proposed to function as a fight--1 ing Opposition, fighting the battles of the people, watching the interests of those who rendered useful service and challenging the Government whenever there was some reason, never unnecessarily—(laughter)—and conducting itself in Parliament along intellectual lines as they always had done, fighting on the groundwork on reason rather than on the groundwork of prejudice. TWO STROKES OF FORTUNE. Lalmrites loooked suspiciously at the Hon W. Downie Stewart when the Minister of Finance began his reply speech with congratulations to Mr Holland on having attained so far in his progress as to reach the position of leader of flic official Opposition. The general election had not given Mr Holland all he hoped foV, because ho approached it with the boast that l.is party would sweep the Government clean off the Treasury benches, but Mr Holland had come back with heavily diminished forces, and his occupancy of the* Opposition benches was due, not to the strength of bis own party, but the growing weakness of his neighbours. “Even now,” continued Mr Stewart, “ho has secured his present position more by good luck than by the decision of the people. He linked a win at Lyttelton and had another stroke of fortune by getting a minority candidate in at Eden. Rut for those two strange strokes he would not have occupied the position he does occupy.” Mr P. Fraser: You don’t, object lo ns getting a minority win? Mr Stewart: No, if the hon gentlemen remain where they are. (Laughter).

The Minister, returning Liter to the fortunes of the Labour Party, declared that- so long as it repeated the jargon of Continental Socialists and screeched to the workers of New Zealand that they were wage slaves it would never gain the confidence of the people of the Dominion.