IDEALS FIRST.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 69, 22 March 1934, Page 27

IDEALS FIRST.

FOURTEEN POINTS. NEW PARTY'S POLICY. MODELLED ON FASCISM. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, March 16. Though tho New Guard has parted company with Colonel Campbell, that enthusiastic reformer has been by no means idle of late. He has been busily engaged in organising his new "Centre Party," and he recently explained to a large gathering what it is and what it intends to do.

"We are weary," said the speaker, "of seeing this great asset Australia eternally governed by representatives of the Trades Hall or by the nominees of greedy old men in the city."

To change all this, he proposes to conduct a great political campaign, "according to the highest British traditions, leaving calumny and unfair personal criticism to those who like that form of attack." He intends to abolish State Parliaments and the division of the Commonwealth into provinces, and his new government will be administered by "representatives of employers and employees elected from industrial groups."

Colonel Campbell holds that "the Italian form of Government is superior to the British," but he seems rather to .miss the point that no ono in Italy would have a chance of election on a "vocational" or any other basis if the Dictator disapproved of him.

The new policy is summed up in Fourteen Points. These provide, among other things, for "the unity of the political, industrial, cultural and moral forces in the State," repeal of all Socialistic legislation, co-operation of Capital and Labour, non-payment of members of Parliament, "freedom from domination by extreme Right or extreme Left in Parliament," freedom of private enterprise, vocational representation, elimination of unemployment, compulsory work for all mentally and physically capable, abolition of bureaucracy, "limitation of Civil Service to the minimum number of loyal citizens required," liberation of industry from inequitable taxation, settlement of unemployed on fertile areas, settlement of the continent and its development, "primarily with British men and private capital, and subject, to tho policy of a white Australia."

It certainly is a comprehensive programme, though I venture to think that it does more credit to Colonel Campbell's heart , than his'head. Unfortunately he has not yet explained how all these things can bo done. Of course, it all starts in his mind with "the failure of Democracy," but that does not carry us very far.