A SILENT GOVERNMENT

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 94, 21 April 1945, Page 4

A SILENT GOVERNMENT

THE majority shareholding in the Bank of New Zealand is in private hands, and it is right that those directly concerned by the Government's decision —or the decision made for the Government—that the State shall become the sole owner should have something to say for themselves. If they did not, it might be thought that they were indifferent, or concerned only with the price to be paid them. In the publication issued on their behalf it appears clearly that they are in the curious position of having nothing to which to reply. They know the Government's intention, and they can only ask why there should be that intention. They point out that the member of the Government who may be presumed to know most about the Bank in its relation to the State, the Minister of Finance, has more than once expressed the view that nothing would be gained by nationalisation. In fact, Mr. Nash, until the Labour Conference's last decision, was the Bank's best witness as to the unwisdom and the pointlessness of the action now proposed. It might be thought that as the intention to introduce the legislation has been announced the Government would now be doing some spadework around the country in an attempt to convince the public. But it remains silent; the opponents of the proposal hold the field. If this silence is induced by the thought that, whatever the Opposition expressed, votes in Parliament will be decisive, it may be described as dubious tactics and bad strategy. Democratic practice does not require only that a Government shall be able to command sufficient votes to carry its proposals; it requires also that the Government shall continually make efforts to explain and justify its proposals to the pecple. In this instance the Government is omitting to state its case, and the conclusion is inevitable that it fears to state a case that it knows to be weak.