ELECTION OPPOSED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 April 1943, Page 4

ELECTION OPPOSED

PEOPLE’S PARTY LETTER ADDRESSED TO MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT. AND POLITICAL ORGANISATIONS. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. On behalf of the People’s Movement, its president, Mr James Crisp, has sent a letter to every member of Parliament, to the president of the National Party organisation and to the Easter Labour Conference, attacking the holding of a general election this year. The letter says an overwhelming majority of the people are ready now to give their members a mandate to drop party politics and form a united War Government.

“It is a mistake to think the people want you to submit yourself to the electorate,” the letter states. “They don’t. They will willingly support you if you join in an administration representing all parties, with the sole objective of utilising the energy, initiative and money they are offering for the war effort.”

The letter expresses a belief that the present arrangement of parties will become the principal election issue if the parties continue to turn a deaf ear to the demands of the people and maintains that it is not in keeping with democratic principle to force an election on people when they do not want it. On the contrary, it is urged, the principle of democracy is lost if Parliament is a divided house when the people are demanding that it be united. The personal aspect of forcing a division of the people in placing party before the war effort is stressed. Would it not be far better to concentrate all abilities on this, it is asked, and then to attempt to realise political ideals in the new world after the war? These questions had been answered once before to the satisfaction of the country. “Why have you changed your decision?” the letter asks. “Is it because of the rift w r hich came in the War Administration? If so, we ask you to try again this time more determined than ever to keep party in the background, because it was party that caused this situation. Is it, on the other hand, because you believe you should settle the future of your party for another three years? We repeat that the people do not want an election to determine whether the present Government or the present Opposition shall rule. If that is the question in your mind, we want you to know it will not be in the mind of the people. Pre-occupidd as they are with the burdens and sacrifices of the war, saddened with losses and anxious for the future, the people will make this an issue between you and themselves —whether party or people shall rule.” Adding that it is impossible to deny that the war is entering upon its most critical phase and that greater efforts, bigger sacrifices and more grievious losses face the people during the next twelve months and perhaps longer, the letter continues: “How can you think of dividing them or clamouring for their attention while an enemy, still unbeaten, may strike madly and desperately in efforts of undreamed-of horror, even at our own shores? We ask you to stop the elections and drop party politics, or at least thrust them into the background. We ask you to form a National War Government, and if you cannot agree upon this to form an all-party Parliamentary War Council, with power to advise on all aspects of domestic and war policy. Any arrangement is better than the calamity of an election during these critical coming months. We ask you to heed the voice of the people before it is too late.”