Bay of Plenty Times. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1923. CLEAN POLITICS

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LII, Issue 8474, 20 December 1923, Page 2

Bay of Plenty Times. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1923. CLEAN POLITICS

We are so accustomed to the idea or rather it is with us so firm an article of faith—that those who sit in the high places in our legislature are honest men, that we forget that other countries are not so fortunate. We have just come across, in an American newspaper, some remarks in the editorial column on the prospectus of a course of lectures dealing with practical politics, which are to be given by leading New York politicians under the auspices of the University of Columbia. Smoothly written of course, with an absence of invective, the criticism is yet one of biting sarcasm, and cutting innuendo, which lets light into suggestions that in this country would entail j the total eclipse of either the

editor of the newspaper publishing them, or of the politicians regarding whom they are written. As a people we indulge in a little mild excitement when an election happens along, and individually we do our best for the candidate and the party that we favour, and conversely we do our utmost to bring about the political downfall of those to whom we are opposed, but after the election is over and we learn that our opponents have gained the da), we are satisfied that they will do their best as patriots for the welfare of all, and we console ourselves with the reflection that the points of difference between our policy and their’s are too flight to worry over, and we know that the motives that actuate our opponents are as clean as our own. It has been said that the Americans are willing to see themselves governed by the worst elements of the people rather than the best, and remain corrupt and contented, which if correct, indicates a frame of mind not conceivable in our political world. It may be that the high standard of political ethics set by those who first occupied seats in our legislative halls has become traditional with us and this, with the good influences resulting from settlement derived chiefly trom the British yeomanry class with a sprinkling of families from North Britain, imbued with the austere tenets of their religion, has made impossible the suggestion of graft in our political life. It can 'be readily imagined that in America, where the lofty sentiments with which the Puritan settlers elected to direct their lives, they were soon swamped by the contiguity of the profligate | living under the plantation system, and where settlers from all I parts of the world, especially 1 from those parts where the ethical code was not as strict as among the peoples of parts of Northern Europe, were welcomed, the status of politicians is held in low esteem, and charges of graft and corruption are common. As with our legislator,;, so with our judicature, and so long as we maintain in our political and judicial life traditions that forbid the possibility even of innuendo so long will we command the respect of the nations of the world, and retain inviolate the sentiments of# free people.