NATIONAL PARTY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22986, 15 September 1936, Page 10

NATIONAL PARTY

NEW IDEALS AND NEW LEADER MR DOiDGE’S EXPLANATION ATTACK ON SOCIALIST PARTY (Per United Press Association) AUCKLAND, Sept. 14. Portion of to-night’s campaign address by Mr F. W. Doidge, National candidate for the Manukau seat, was devoted to a reply to the recent Ministerial criticism of his platform. He referred to the Labour Representation Committee as a Soviet possessing unlimited power, dictating the policy of th§ party and of the Government. It was the tail that wagged the dog, he said. In their attacks on him on successive Saturday nights at Ellerslie the Minister of Education, Mr P. Fraser and the Minister of Public Works, Mr R. Semple, sought to convey the impression that he had fought the Rotorua seat as a Democrat and that he had since changed his political beliefs and was prepared to follow Mr Coates and Mr Forbes as leaders. Neither statement was true. He fought Rotorua as an Independent against the Democrat, Professor Corbin. He stood as an Independent because he could not and would no' follow the leadership of Mr Coates and Mr Forbes. Personally, he said, he had nothing against either man. Mr Forbes probably had more friends outside politics than any man in the country, but inside politics his friends were few. He was an honest man in politics, but something more than a reputation for honesty was needed in a leader. Mr Coates was, in the speaker's opinion, the ablest man in Parliament to-day, but he had lost touch with the people. He made a god of efficiency and during the depression he succeeded in keeping the country solvent. He had become hard, aloof and intolerant, but a year or two in the political wilderness would have a softening and humanising effect. That he would in the course of time come back as a political leader was a definite possibility. “I am an anti-Socialist,” said Mr Doidge. “We have a Socialist Government in power elected on a minority vote of the people. To approach the next general election with a division of forces will be to make a present of the Treasury Benches to the Socialist Party for another three years. The consolidation of the anti-Socialist forces will turn the Socialists out of office, and to achieve this- purpose a new National Party has been established. It is a new organisation with new ideals and a new leader, who will be neither Mr Forbes nor Mr Coates “There is nothing inconsistent in my association with the new party.” Mi Doidge continued. “ I have worked hard to bring.it into being so that I occupy a different position from that of my opponent, Mr Osborne. He is only a pawn in the game. He dare .not give a promise to the electors outside the set policy of the Soviet—that body altogether outside Parliament, the Labour Representation Committee, for fear of being pulverised and steam-rolled out of existence. It is the Soviet I attack, not the puppet of the Soviet.”

Mr Doidge referred to Parliament as a glorified parish pump. Its Ministers had become swollen-headed with power, and he warned the electors against sinking in the quicksands of further industrial legislation A vote of confidence in the speaker and the new party was carried by acclamation without a dissentient voice.