WAR POLICY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 October 1942, Page 3

WAR POLICY

SPEECHES IN NO=CONFIDENCE DEBATE VIEWS OF MR COATES & OTHER MINISTERS. SITUATION CRITICAL. In the course of an extended speech in the no-confidence debate in the House of Representatives, the Minister of Armed Forces and War Coordination (Mr Coates) .said the war situation at the moment was as critical as it could be.

“Our Allies in the Pacific,” he went on to observe, “are engaged in a terrific struggle to hold the ground they have won. It is not a raid on the part of the enemy, but a determined effort lo drive them out. This war is very close to our country, very close to Australia. This struggle may mean the safety and preservation of our people —that is not an exaggeration. These are stern facts. We are up against it as never before.” Mr Coates said the issue before the House in the no-confidence motion was whether the law should have been carried out and a group of miners sent to prison. Having in mind what he had said about the enemy threat and the danger to our safety, he asked members to contradict it and to ask themselves what they would have done in similar circumstances. His own opinion was that the House had one course and only one to steer, and that was to take a line that would bring our people together in a common cause against the threat they had to contend with. New Zealand could still play a vital part in the decision being ■fought out at the moment.

Mr Coates denied a statement which had been made that on coming back from a meeting with the coal-owners in Auckland he had said that the latter had agreed to the control regulations. REFERENCE TO ELECTION. The Minister of Supply and Munitions, Mr Sullivan, congratulated Mr Coates on what he described as his statesmanlike, practical and' patriotic speech, an attitude he had consistently displayed since he joined the War Cabinet.

Referring to a charge by Mr Doidge that the Government was hanging on to office by avoiding an election, Mr Sullivan said there would be no hanging on to office by the Government. When the war situation and reasonable security permitted, the Government would go to the country. The Government knew its duty to the electors, and would do its duty as ordinary decent self-respect required that it should do. The Government would have betrayed the country, the war effort, and the men overseas who needed certaih supplies, if it had not taken the steps it did to get the miners producing coal again, Mr Sullivan contended. Coal could not have been got if the miners had been put in gaol, and the ships could not have moved across the Tasman. The whole issue was very difficult, but any question of enforcement of the law in the way the Opposition wanted was overruled by the imperative needs of the war situation. PROTEST BY MR FORBES. The contention that Parliament was the place to consider the question of taking over control of the mines was advanced by Mr Forbes (Opposition, Hurunui). The Leader of the Opposition, he added, had gone into the War Cabinet on condition that any controversial matter was to be avoided as far as possible. The Leader of the Opposition could not remain in the War Cabinet in view of the way in which he had been treated. He had stood by Ministers who had proclaimed their intention of taking a firm stand in the Waikato strike and then had deserted him. He could not understand why the Prime Minister and the others in the War Cabinet had shown such a hostile attitude toward the Leader of the Opposition, and it seemed as if they wanted to drive him out.

“We have the amendment moved by the Prime Minister,” said Mr Forbes. “That is an old political trick. This is not a time for political trickery and I am going to vote against it. I won’t vote for a Government that handled the Waikato strike like this one did. The introduction of the war effort into the amendment is simply dragging the war effort in the dirt.”

THE GOVERNMENT’S DUTY. The Opposition member for Waipawa, Mr Harker, said that the Government had run away from its duty to uphold the law. All thinking people, he declared, would applaud the action taken by the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr Moncur (Government, Rotorua.) pleaded for a better understanding of the miners and their conditions of work. Much of the criticism in Opposition speeches, he said, showed a lack of knowledge of mining conditions. Information as to whether the control introduced at the Waikato mines was to be extended to other mines was sought by Sir Alfred Ransom (Oppositon, Pahiatua). “If it is considered necessary for the Waikato mines to be brought under State control, surely it is just as necessary for the mines on the West Coast,” he said. The Minister of Public Works, Mr Armstrong, said that the Leader of the Opposition would have committed a grave error of judgment if he had acted as he suggested the Government should have acted in regard to the miners. This country had been one of the most peaceful in the world since the outbreak of war, there being less strikes and more production. New Zealand owed a lot to the miners, who worked in one of the key industries. “Coal is-so essential at all times that it is a question whether the mines should not always be controlled by the State, otherwise there is always the danger of paralysing the country’s industries because of an argument between the owners and the miners,” said Mr Armstrong. “If we had gone to the extent of nationalising the mines that would not be going too far for my liking, anyhow.” “The. issue to be settled in connection with this strike was whether we were to have coal at any price or uphold the law,” said Mr Goosman (Opposition, Waikato). Stating that he did not intend to take part in the division as he had no enthusiasm for the motion or amendment, Mr Lee (Democratic Labour, Grey Lynn) said the Government should extend the same clemency to other New Zealanders as that shown to the miners. Those others had been severely punished and were losing leave because of their actions. “These men had a legitimate grievance and I ask that the harsh penalties be waived,” he said.

The Minister of Health, Mr Nordmeyer, charged the Leader of the Opposition and other Opposition members with gross inconsistency. He said that if the no-confidence motion were carried it meant a dissolution of Parliament and an election. In moving the motion the Leader of the Opposition was bringing himself and his party and not the Government before the critical examination of the country.