A GENERAL ELECTION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 2632, 13 September 1923, Page 3

A GENERAL ELECTION.

NOT AT ALL UNLIKELY. A LABOUR MEMBER’S OPINION. Auckland, This Day. A General Election next year is not at a 1! unlikely in the opinion of Mr M. J. Savage, M.P., who addressed his constitutents last evening. “My experience seems to indicate that we will have an election next year,” the member said. “We will have the Prime Minister returning with an Empire policy he is prepared to go to the country on. Parliament, you will probably find, will not agree very well next session,, and the Prime Minister will decide to go to the country.” There were, lie added, already signs that there was something doing. Trouble could always be looked for when certain literature was circulated on behalf of the Reform Party, and this was being distributed at present.

“A sorry mess,” was Mr Savage’s description of the Electoral Bill. Anyone who knew the Reform Party to-day knew the proposals would mean its extermination. Of course, the Labour Party would fight the Bill for all it, was worth, and the Reform Party would simply sit. back and blame it for the Bill not passing. The Liberals were the only ones who would gain by it, and, according to their leader, they were in favour of it. The Prime Minister simply threw the Bill on to the floor of the House, and said it, was not a party question. Of course, it was not, because a number of his own members were against it, and he challenged the party to say it wanted the Bill. The Liberals, Mr Savage remarked, said they were “in the middle of the road.” They might be, but they did not seem to know what way they were going (laughter). His impression was that there had to be a revolutionary change. He supposed they did not like the term, but coming from a. member of the Extreme Labour Party they would understand it. They had to have a complete change us far as administrations were concerned. That was the sort of revolution he meant. The time for promises had gone by, and now there must be something like action.