M.P. UNDER FIRE

Hokitika Guardian, 8 April 1930, Page 5

M.P. UNDER FIRE

MR JENKINS ATTACKED.

REVIEW OF THE POLITICAL SITUATION.

AUCKLAND, April 4

Strong exception to the action of Mr H. R. Jenkins in resigning from the United Party and then seeking re-election in the Parnell electorate under the Reform banner was taken

by speakers at a political meeting at Koliimarama last evening. Mr W. J. Jordan, M.P., who gave the principal address, quoted Hansard at length, and contrasted Mr Jenkins’s statements in the House as a

United, member with subsequent state-

ments which he made on resigning. With Mr Jenkins’s name was bracketed that of Mr R. Glower Clark, a candidate for nomination in the Reform interests at the Ibye-election, who lacted as Mr Jenkins’3 chairman during the last campaign. “We have really been tricked. They came here to. a meeting. I was in the chair, and they said some seathjng things about the Reform Party. Now they are seeking nomination by that party,” said the chairman (Mr J. H. Hubber). “We are not opening a campaign fer any party here to-night, but are just reviewing the present political.; situation. The political position .is very complicated and unsatisfactory,” stated Mr Jordan. “Although the Prime Minister is a sick man, he is still half the United Party. He is not as sick physically as many of the members are mentally. To say . that they are a party is to say something untrue. They are a, collection of men who wanted to get into Parliament, and the Prime Minister has no sup-

iort from many of them. They have

not been a team. A Minister ;.of the Crown told riie that the party had done its best. I said, ‘lt has done its best. That is the trouble, and we know that we can expect nothing better. However, the Reform’Party has.not done its worst yet.’

;* “The day has comie. surely when there should be the same sincerity in politics as in business. ‘ When a party offers itself to the country and says

that it .can.,and will do certain.^ things, there is a moral , responsibility to perform its promises. If a.private person gave anundertaking’. as the United Party did .and failed as signally as that party, he would go before the Supreme Court on charges of misrepresentation and breach of contract. •; "i

“When the matter of, a land purchase made (by the Reform Party, and at present under investigation, was before the House, Mr Jenkins said, a cannot understand how the honourable member, who professes to be an honest man, could sit with a party like that.’ The same gentleman finds now that he wants to join that patty. “If we could get to-day the!spirit of the 1890 Liberals or the 1906 Liberals into any party, I would leave the Labour Party and join it, but we find that the will has long since departed from that party ..It has been broken up from' the inside. It has committed political suicide, and . the spirit and broad principles of Liberalism are now to be found only m the Labour Party.’,’ " :