THE HAPPY FAMILY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 April 1939, Page 4

THE HAPPY FAMILY

(To the Editor.) Sir,— Though naturally cramped for space by reason of the great call upon it by reason of the day by day more alarming situation in European crisis affairs, I would yet crave your editorial indulgence in permitting an ordinary everyday man in the street’s view of the doings of the Labour Party Conference, just now busy with political affairs, to intrude itself to slight review.

The annual conference address of President (re-elected) James Roberts, makes a good impression upon the ordinary public mind, apart from the fact of its quality, inasmuch as the hand may be that of Esau but the voice is still that of Jacob; as should be the case, in all well-regulated political affairs.

At all cost, and more particularly in view of many rumours, to the contrary —even stressed abroad in Australia by a widely-read Sydney publication which first made public reference to a Cabinet split of no small significance or size—this united happy family spirit must, and has been well and truly, by Mr Roberts, at least ver bally acclaimed. It is not for the small boy section of Labour’s rank and file to peep inside the political clock in order to see the wheels go round —the tick-tock, tick-tock of the still swinging pendulum is sufficient evidence, for them, that it might not be gaining time, but that it only needed to be regulated a little and re-wound. Even if, of late, it has been striking six when it ought to strike nine.

Even the bare suggestion of our truly and deservedly popular Labour Premier, Mr Savage, having had cause not only to rebuke a caucus meeting of his Ministerial appointees to such extent as has since warranted his seeking and gaining the personal approbation of the Labour Conference for his then attitude of determining the breach by rather tendering his resignation from highest office therein than submit to such Ministerial domination, is one of the most crucial moments in all Labour Party history. Not only to the conference’s elect but to the ordinary man in the street, such a threat of disunity among Labour Party political leaders in Parliament at a moment of real increasing national peril abroad, is a disturbing thought indeed. It still may be said of him that no such natural-born t leader of the Labour Party as the' Hon M. J. Savage will be found in this generation.—I am, etc., “MAN IN THE STREET.” Masterton, April 10.