"UNDEMOCRATIC."

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 206, 1 September 1938, Page 12

"UNDEMOCRATIC."

LABOUR ATTACKED. RESIGNATION FROM PARTY. A CLEAVAGE LIKELY ? * , (From Our Own Correspondent.) CHRISTCHURCH, Wednesday. It is suggested that a cleavage is likely between the Labour party and the monetary reform advocates of New Zealand as a result of the resignation from the party of Mr. W. B. Bray, recognised leader of the Douglas Social Credit Movement in New Zealand and for long a prominent supporter of credit reform. Mr. Bray has handed his resignation to the Woolston branch of the Labour party, of which "he hae been a member, alleging that he cannot subscribe to what he calls the "undemocratic" methods of Labour party administrators.

The failure of the Labour party to make clear its intentions about" its methods of finding money for State purposes is given by Mr. Bray as his reason for resigning." In a statement he said that when he put forward his views by circular at the last Easter Labour conference, he had been severely reprimanded by the chairman, Mr. James Roberts, who had advised delegates to "tear the circular up."

"My reason for resigning ie that the party has not carried out its election pledges and will not give the public a etraight-out answer as to its intentions regarding the debt system of finding money for its purposes," Mr. Bray said. "The party promisee to increase the buying power of the people. It has increased the incomes of sections at the expense of other sections of the people, and at the expense of all through a rise in prices. Its promises regarding the abolition of sales and exchange taxes are now found to have strings attached, and it is becoming clear that in spite of all their protestations about the need for the reform of the monetary system they are just as eager ae any "other Government to play the game "for flie credit monopolists, by acting as tax collectors.

"Controlled by Small Group." "They are obeessed with the idea that we need to be governed and that they are experts who know just what is good for us. Under the guise of Socialism they would divide us (by taxation) and rule, and in that respect they are no more and no lees respectable 'than the governments being opposed by Labour in other so-called democratic countries. "I joined the Labour party in an earnest endeavour to get them to see the folly of playing the game under the rulee imposed by big finance, which is international and extra national. I had it put up to me that I had no business to stand off and criticise, but that if I had better ideas I had every right to go into the party and convince its"members of the soundness of the alternative My experience is that the party is controlled by a small group, the 'members of which, having a vested interest rn their executive jobs, are more concerned with the fate of the party as a party than with the interests of the whole of the people."