UNITED DEBACLE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 872, 16 January 1930, Page 9

UNITED DEBACLE

“NO PRINCIPLES—THEREFORE NO FRIENDS” PARTY SCATHINGLY ATTACKED •‘The United Party has come to the end of its capacity to bargain. It has no principles and therefore, in the last resort, no faithful friends. “It has antagonised and gravely injured the farming community; it has terrified capital, demoralised labour, given political Labour power which the electors refused it at the poll.” Thus scathingly “The Press.” Christchurch, sums up the debacle of lho United Party, which has aroused Dominion-wide interest. “The Press” says also: “Members and supporters of the Reform Party will bo neither elated nor amused by the attack mado on the Prime Minister by the chairman of the executive of the United organisation. Far less will they bo surprised or deceived. No one will be simple enough not to know why Mr. Davy wants to save the country from Sir Joseph Ward, and no one blind enough not to see that a good deal of what ho says about the United Party is true. “It is true that the party is in the pocket of Labour, true that it has no firm and sound principles, true that it behaved very badly in the controversy over the London loan, true that its methods of relieving unemployment have laid up trouble for the community for years ahead. It lias generally made thoughtful citizens wonder what is likely to happen next. “Everybody knows this, but everybody knows also that if there is one man in the Dominion who should rather cut out his tongue than say it. it is Mr. A. E. Davy, at present chairman of the executive and formerly Dominion organiser. The moral is that the only sure foundation for a political party is political principle. The United Party has no principles, and therefore, in the last resort, no faithful friends. If Mr. Davy is able to injure it, that is because it began, Us all opportunist parties must begin, by exchanging favours and has now come to the end of its capacity to bargain. “Although Reform has never been charged with abandoning its principles, there are many of its supporters who believe that one cause of the disaster which overtook it 14 months ago was its attempt, we shall not say to sweeten its enemies, but to sweeten certain sections of the public by doing things that only its enemies approved of. It can now afford to stand asido while the United Party bickers and brawls, but it cannot afford to neglect the obvious lesson that opportunism in the long run brings its own punishment.’* The “Evening Star,” Dunedin, calls Mr. Davy a king-maker and regards his exposures as “poor policy to make sport for the Philistines, which is the chief effect of Mr. Davy’s latest performance. “King-makers are notoriously uncertain people to deal with,” the “Star” continues, “and if Mr. Davy were tempted to regard himself as a kingmaker in New Zealand politics there would be some excuse for it. . . . In his criticism of last session’s record ho does not make nearly enough allowance for the circumstances of minority government and for Sir Joseph Ward's illness, or give nearly enough credit to what was accomplished, set out in the Prime Minister’s reply. Present differences would never have arisen, it is to be supposed, but for Sir Joseph Ward’s illness. As it is, the organisation alike of the Cabinet and of the party must appear to leave much to seek ”