CO-OPERATION OR DRIFT?

Putaruru Press, Volume VIII, Issue 346, 10 July 1930, Page 4

CO-OPERATION OR DRIFT?

The session has thus been allowed to open with the three parties in exactly the same positions that they held during the previous session. A United Government, slightly weaker in, support and much weaker personally than its predecessor, is again in office. A slightly stronger Reform Party constitutes the Opposition. The Labour Party, though the smallest party in the House, is allowed to hold the balance of power because the other two parties refuse to adjust their relatively insignificant said, the Prime Minister’s fault that nothing has been done or even attempted to settle those differences before the meeting of Parliament, and it is not for him to blame the Opposition for exercising its normal constitutional right. Yet in view of the very abnormal circustances we very much regret that Mr. Coates has followed the Prime Minister’s bad lead by moving a vote of no-con-fidence at the first possible opportunity. What possible good it can do we are quite unable to see, since everybody knows from the experience of last session and the unchanged attitude of the Government exactly how the parties stand, and how the vote will go. There is no point in a “ political showdown ” when there is nothing for it to show, but what is already known.—Wellington Evening Post.