Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1938. LABOUR’S SPECTACULAR WIN.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 October 1938, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1938. LABOUR’S SPECTACULAR WIN.

VOTTIING is more obvious than that the position of the Labour Government has been strengthened greatly as a result of Saturday’s polling. In the last Parliament Labour held thirty more seats than the National Party and Independents combined, but had attained that, position on a minority vote of lhe people at the polls. As figures stand at present, with the fate of a few seats (amongst which Masterton possibly may be included) slill in. doubt, Labour •will have 54 seats,' the National Party 24, and Independents two. It transforms the position, however, that Labour now has the support of a substantial majority of the electors of the Dominion. An electoral result so'decisive can. only he accepted as final and conclusive for the time being. Labour has an indisputable mandate to proceed, with its social security scheme and other policy proposals. The authoritative character of the mandate must be accepted equally by those who approve unreservedly of these proposals and by those who regard some of them as in some respects seriously open to criticism. Whether they perceive and. admit it or not, the Labour Government and its supporters will be wise to make a. reasonably moderate and restrained use of the opportunity with which they have been presented by the electors. It would be only too easy for the party in office to attach to its victory an even greater significance than is warranted. Some of our Labour Ministers and members have exhibited rather juvenile tendencies which they would be well advised in their own interests to curb. Finding expression in impatient denunciations by Labour spokesmen of anyone who ventures to disagree with them, these tendencies can only be attributed to a limited experience of the responsibilities of office. In our British political practice there is no place for anything in the nature of a permanent Government, immune from criticism. Governments are long-lived at times, but all go their way at last into Opposition or into oblivion. In time, no doubt, the coming and going of Labour governments will become as much a. commonplace, in this country as it long has been in Australia, which has had a much more extended experience of Labour in office than has New Zealand. The election which has established Labour so firmly in power for the time being has also made a modest addition to the strength of the 'National Party, at the expense chiefly of Independents, and so has done something to consolidate the Opposition which plays a part in our political life only less responsible than that of the Government in office. While Labour mustered an overwhelming superiority of voting strength in the cities and other large urban areas, the position generally in other parts of the Dominion is by no means completely one-sided. In the return of National Party members and in the substantial figures polled by Opposition voters in many constituencies in which Labour members have been returned, a basis has been provided on which it should be possible to organise an Opposition stronger and better consolidated than that which acquitted itself very well under difficulties in the lasi Parliament. Level-beaded people of all shades of political opinion will welcome the development ol’ an effective Opposition, which has an essential part to play both in helping to keep the Government up to the highest' possible pitch of efficiency and in preparing in due lime to replace it. Many national problems will demand earnest study in lhe immediate future, not least the problem of setting what limits are possible to currency inflation —taking effect in rising costs of living and of production—as the Government’s programmes of huge projected expenditure are added'to those already in force. Labour has had the experience thus far of governing in some of the most prosperous years of oversea trading this country has ever known. It may now be afforded an opportunity of showing what it can do in years of less favourable tra.de. There is in any case an assurance of a fairly complete working lest of the Government’s financial policy in its general effect on the affairs and fortunes of the community and in its particular application to important and more or less specialised branches of enterprise like the social security scheme and that of guaranteed prices for dairy produce and other agricultural commodities. AVhile slavish acceptance, of anything and everything that the Government may say or do would be worthy only of a population of slaves, the Labour Party manifestly has been given a mandate under which it has every right to proceed with the development of the policy to which it is committed. That broad aspect of the position plainly must be accepted by all good democrats.