LABOUR DILEMMA

Hokitika Guardian, 25 March 1930, Page 2

LABOUR DILEMMA

(Christchurch Times.) Evidently there is far from unanimity in the ranks of the Labour Party as to the wisdom of taking any course of action that might lead directly or indirectly to an early election. The confident tone which Mr Holland assumed in his Westport speech, and the confidence with which lie iiirectecl to regard the possibility of an assumption of office by the Labour Party, find no. echo in the statement made by Mr D. G. Sullivan, the party’s senior whip, last week. Mr Sullivan appeared anxious to correct any impression that Mr Holland’s utterances might possibly have given rise to that the Labour Party was ready to force an early election, and his statement that Labour will take no action that will precipitate an election provides a rather drastic modification of'Mr Holland’s forecast.

According to Mr Holland, Labour would, during the coming session, “press every demand embodied in its pronouncement- of last month.” Mr Sullivan is much more modest. 'Labour, he says, it is not out to precipitate an election, “but • • • • is doing the common-sense thing in taking all the necessary action in order to be prepared for eventualities” In stating that Labour will act according to the merits “of each individual legislative and administrative action,’ Mr Sullivan has re-opened the door, which Mr Holland appeared to be willing to close, to a policy dictated by the expediency of the moment. In doing so he indicated the presence of a considerable degree of nervousness in the Labour ranks at the prospect of an election, a nervousness for which there appears to be very much better ground than there is for the confidence witli which Mr Holland seemed to be imbued.

The big stick that Mr Holland revealed in his reference to the defeat of. the Government on the Labour Party’s motion has been hidden av.ay in the corner again by Mr Sullivan, and the lion that roared in Westport has become a lamb in Christchurch. Not the least extraordinary part of Mr Holland’s utterance was the easy manner in which he swept aside all obstacles to the installing of the Labour Party in office. Having done that, he proceeded, , iii a manner reminiscent of a well-known fable of iEsop, to outline what be would do next, piling his castles in the air to a point where a Government, headed by Mr Holland, was passing a programme of constructive legislation that, commanded public approval. It is a very charming picture, but it is far from the realities of the position, a fact that Mr Sullivan seems to have realised.

The position in which we are left, therefore, as a result of the declaration of Mr Holland, as amended by Mr Sullivan, is that the Labour Party is looking very wistflully at certain chestnuts that are nicely toasting .in the fire. But the party, wiser than it used to be, is aware that the sole result of trying to get them out may be that it will burn itself,, and thereafter spend in licking its hurts tho time that others are spending in the ment of the. fruits of its rash enterprise.