TO THE POLLS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 220, 17 September 1938, Page 17

TO THE POLLS.

RUSH AT THE LAST.

PH&TOGRAPHER'S ACTIVITY.

PRIME MINISTER'S SMILE.

(Bv BERNICE SHACK T.ETON.)

And so to the country. It has been a strange week, with a yearning to be off. Speeches have been scrambled together on the numerous minor bills rushed through at the laM. On Wednesday Select Committees piesentcd their final reports and votes of thanks to the chairmen. That brought a valedictory air into the Chamber. The rush of legislation which intensified the restless atmosphere in the Lower House caused a smooth silence in the Council as bills went through the committee stages without comment. Fifty clauses in the Finance Bill passed with the turning of the leave*. A score of bills more or less had to be cleared by Saturday morning. Messengers started packing for members early i nthe week, gathering up files, folders and clippings to which new clippings were hastily added. The House seemed to be. full of 'visitor*. There was ijiuch rushinjj to the photographers, and "These are -the election points I am going to make'' became a final clarifying in members' minds of the social security points. But over the uncertainty of the elections hung the threat of war. Suspense in the city filled the gall leries even in the afternoons. The weather in Wellington was very boisterous. Yet members had long been restive. As far back as the passing of the Social Security Bill in the Lower House—nine days k an age in this tension —it was evident that there was anxiety on the home fronts. The last night and morning of the passing of the Social Security Bill had seen the smallest Labour division® in the history of this Parliament, for about two dozen members were absent from the House. But they came back again to savour these last days, and the international situation recharged the air. War and Elections. It i£ recalled that the la«t war did : not prevent the holding of the 1914 elections. '"Business a« usual," Mr. Massey said then. War broke out in August. The elections were held in September, and then we had the five-year National Government. < And now, too, the preparations go on. In a garden in Molesworth Street cameramen set up their apparatus and shortly the Prime Minister appears at the door of his residence and walks down the path. The photographers stop him and suggest that he might pause, perhaps, and contemplate the rose bush for a moment. ("Roses, roses all the way . . . the air was lighter then."') At a point nearer to the camera he delivers his message to the country in happily familiar phrases that fine morning, but as the week progressed he may have wished for a revision. "There Is nothing to fear," l>egan to lose its reality. Mantle of Seddon? They have taken another photograph of Mr. Savage. He is standing beside the bust of Seddon, that robust Imperialist commanding face, cast now in marble stillness, yet speaks a silent antithesis. And in the last glance at the Parliamentary scene, there is.Mr. Savage still sitting up very straight and smiling. "Everything will be all right," he seems to go on saying. But . . . time marches on. Mr. Nash is greyer, now and more worn. And occasionally from the back benches someone comes to consult him. In these three years a few young members- have moved forward a little, but onty a little, from the rank and file: the. Rev. A. H. Nordmeyer, chairman of the Social Security Committee; Mr. David Barnes, a hard worker, continually busy for Mr. Nash, though -he does not catch public imagination; and Dr. McMillan has been given a fictitious weight for electoral consumption. Social Security brought these to the fore. The fJovernment stalwarts hold their own. They have drawn together again in this session. But some of the Labour members who were newcomers to the House three years ago have lost their early inspiration. There is not enough for the private member of a large party to do. A Man of Action. Action. That gives a young man confidence. In the team across the floor the smallnese of the numbers has made fighters of them aIL Mr. S. G. Holland's has been the most notable rise. He concentrated at first on industrial legislation and then on Social Security. The -harpness of his attack and his quick, good natured wit focused attention on him from the outset, and after Mr. Ham-

ilton's appointment to tie LeadersWp o! the Opposition he became almost supple mentary to the Leader.

Their minds dovetail in this way, that whereas they are both realists in their grasp of facts, Mr. Holland is, if anything, quicker to see a way out of a situation, but Mr. Hamilton has the experience and judgment to check any impetuosity in the younger man.

Here it should be said with emphasis that Mr. Hamilton will not abandon the Leadership if returned to power. He knows his own qualities. But he does believe in training others to sustain the sequence of leadership so that when his day passes it may go on without danger to the party.

The National party is on the point of announcing its policy. The Government says it will fight tlie election on Social Security, and the substance of the National party's policy touching this issue is embodied in the report of the minority members of the committee delivered to Parliament by Mr. Holland and championed by that old war horse of many elections, Mr. Kyle, who has discovered a new popularity through the radio.

But still in the battle of benefits there is a forgotten woman who has no hope even in shaky securities. She ie the spinster of fifty, frozen out of her job. It is twenty-four years since the last war broke out. She >w»uld be twentysix then, in the flower of her young womanhood, partner-to-be of a man who never returned. Is there any reward for twenty-four years of quiet heroism in a world that is still unequal for men and women in insecurity at the last?

Indeed, is there any security at all now? Certain youth movements are tieginning to «av. "You can have no security without defence. As the shadow of war hangs over us the social security phrase takes on new Intonations. ▲ Matter of Beaponaibility In 1926 Mr. Coates, whose place in Imperial history has been forgotten in the nation's flush of Socialism, accepted for this country the principle that we were primarily responsible for our own defence, and that we would also accept our share of the common burden of defence of the Empire. During the war period, quite apart from the expeditionary force, New Zealand maintained a territorial force of 25,000 men. After the war there were 20,000 ready, and these were officered by men of large war experience. Now we have a force of 7400, of whom only 3000 odd went into camp this year for annual training. Moreover the officers and N-C.O.'b with war service are

gradually disappearing, and the smallness of the numbers in training precludes any lessons in leadership being learned by the younger officers. These "facts have been repeatedly stated in th« House by Colonel Hargest, whose service to Parliament has been one of steady and constructive criticism, and whose war service was one of the finest in the records of the New Zealand forces —M.C., D.5.0., the French Legioirof Honour. "The rapid and exceptional success which attended his career has won for him a foremost place among the distinguished soldiers of the New Zealand Division." That is calm official wording. The times which justify the repetition provide the comment. As this column goes to the printer the fear of a national emergency flashes the spotlight over the Labour Ministry. But this pen is not ready to follow it with thoughts that may be voiced in the present campaign* Rather one recalls Ruskin's accusation: "There is not a war in the world, no, nor an injustice, but you women are answerable for it; not in that you have provoked, but in that you have not hindered."