NATIONAL PARTY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 210, 5 August 1937, Page 9

NATIONAL PARTY.

SUCCESSFUL MEETINGS. MEMBERSHIP INCREASE. WELLINGTON, Aug. 4. “The National Party is truly national in character, representing the whole of the community as distinct from sectional or class interests,” said the leader of the party, Hon. Adam Hamilton, in a statement made to-day on his return to Wellington from Palmerston North. Mr Hamilton said that the recent meetings of the executive and the Parliamentary section of the party had been most successful, and reports from all over the Dominion were most encouraging.

The large increase' in membership of the party in the electorates was due to the keen interest taken by all in politics to-day, the general public being harassed and apprehensive. The unrest had not been alleviated by the return of the Prime Minister, whose published inference that the exchange would be altered did not help either farmers or business men to put their businesses on a sound basis.

“A general plan of campaign was prepared for the electorates and for the House during the coming session,” said Mr Hamilton. “Apart from a critical examination of the Labour Party’s policy, it will be made clear that the National Party stands for the maintenance of our democratic system as opposed to both Fascism or Communism. “We are truly national in character, representing the whole of the community, as distinct from sectional or class interests; we will preserve the utmost freedom for individuality and initiative, as distinct from State and Ministerial domination; we will preserve the traditional rights of our British people to have justice administered by our courts of law, as distinct from the present practice, or Ministers usurping these functions. Asked when the annual conference of the party would be held, at which, it is understood, the policy of the party will be announced, Mr Hamilton 'said that the conference would meet shortly after the assembling ot Parliament .