DO WE NEED DISCIPLINE?

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 207, 2 September 1936, Page 20

DO WE NEED DISCIPLINE?

The Hon. F. M. B. Fisher sees the remedy for "lack of discipline"—as he calls it—in dictatorship. The perfect administration, in the eyes of such, is always complete control of the other fellow. The mistake in the mass seems to be in imagining that power necessarily provides or produces administrative ability. And it is this mistake which inspires dictators. It is impossible to think in the mass, and action without thought can be summed up in one word — annihilation. The strength of the individual is the strength of the nation or state. Discipline is the dogma of despots and state control is its hand-maiden. Neither can keep the citizen healthy, vigorous or enterprising. The citizen who requires to be disciplined by the other fellow is no longer a citizen but a slave. The true slave prefers bondage to freedom. He is the "lit unit" to the dictator. If man is to live, dictators must die, not by violence, but by discrimination. The path to civic glory is per the full freedom of the citizen, unfettered and untaxed. Ingersoll dreamed of "a world without a sflave, man at last free!" The greatest statesman New Zealand ever saw, said: "The first duty of the State is to restore to the people their natural rights, viz.: (1) The annual economic rent of the land as the natural source of national revenue; (2) the use of this revenue for the administration of public services in lieu of all taxes; (3) the complete social and industrial freedom of every citizen. This, and this only, can save civilisation from utter annihilation." This is the correct answer to Mr. Fisher's wail, as I see it. .TANITE.