MR. FORBES'S SUCCESS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 24, 21 September 1931, Page 2

MR. FORBES'S SUCCESS

It is stil! too early irx the complete absence of information, regarding the poliey of the new Coalition Government to form a final opinion as to the merits of last Friday's sensational political events. Developments seem to suggest, however, that the decision of the Reform Party to join forces with the United Government is something in the nature of a personal triumph for Mr. Forbes. For months past the Prime Minister has urged his fusion proposal at every available opportunity, but without apparently making much impression upon the party whose sympathies he chiefly wooed; With that tenacity of purpose, which is one of his characteristics, however, he continued his efforts and it is now reported that he went to the inter-party economy committee with the firm intention of forcing this issue when the committee had reached the deliberative stages of its proceedings. If the report is well founded, Mr. Forbes can now congratulate himself upon the substantial achievement of his objeet. The coalition is not, by any means, the same thing as the fusion he had set his heart and hbpes upon. The Reform leader, indeed, has made it very clear that, under the arrangeinent agreed upon, both the Reform Party and the United Party will preserve their separate entities. The Coalition will, however, have the effect of giving Mr. Forbes, as Prime Minister, the benefit of the experiencd assistance and political weight of the Reform Party and also — a factor which he probably values no less highly — of definitely dividing between his own and the Reform parties the burden and responsibility for the inevitably unpopular legislation' which must be p'ut through if the finances of the country are to be placed on a sounder footing than they are at present. From the point of view of the country there are advantages in the arrangement which should ensure for the new Cabinet a sufRcient-y sympathetic reception provided it succeeds in pboducing a policy which oifers a reasonable prospect of improving the country's economic position. Many of the means employed towards this end must, in the nature of things, prove far from palatable, but provided the coalition displays vision and courage in its handling of the nation's affairs, it need nfot fear the people's response. Desperate ills usually reciuire unpalatable remedies, and few things could be worse than the past uncertainty and drift.