Politics and Pledges.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19459, 5 November 1928, Page 10

Politics and Pledges.

There have been many signs that political candidates have been thinking over the advice given to them by The Pbess and Borne other newspapers concerning the unwisdom, and the impropriety, of giving pledges to sectional organisations whose objective is not included inlhe programmes of the candidates' Parties. The Labour candidate for Christchurch North, the Eev. J. K. Archer, is an avowed Prohibitionist, but, as we recorded on Saturday, he has been telling his audiences that he has been receiving questionnaires from all sorts of organisations, including the N.Z. Alliance, and that "if M.P.'s allowed themselves to be "tied up by these movements they " would be representing, not the people, "but only private cliques. They try "to leg-rope you," he added, " and send "you to Parliament to put into effect " their decisions." We should be sorry, on general political grounds, to see Mr Archer elected for Christchurch North, and we hope he will not be elected, but the opinion he expresses in the words we have quoted is perfectly sound. We have given it often enough as our own, and it is the opinion of every intelligent person who has thought about the subject. The Evening Post, of Wellington, which has been opposing the giving of pledges to particularist groups, has been discussing the ease of Mr Tapley, the member for Dunedin North. Mr Tapley had not had much political experience when he was elected in 1925, and out of his inexperience he pledged himself to the N.Z. Alliance. During the last. Parliament he found that he had made a mistake, but of course he honoured his pledges. He was frank and courageous enough, however, to admit in the House that he had made a mistake, and he declared he would never tie himself down again. The Evening. Post makes this pointed comment: —

Mr Tapley was not the only member, we feel sure, whose pledges hindered a course dictated by reason. It is true that others did not admit their mistake. Instead, several of them gave a silent vote, with no attempt to defend their action. Will they now be as courageous as Mr Tapley and face the issue openly f The country will be the gainer, if every candidate will admit the unwisdom of giving pledges to particularist sections by refusing to give pledges at all except such as he gives voluntarily to the Party whose flag iie carries. The N.Z. Alliance is the most powerful and the most prominent of these organisations, but it is only one of several bodies, | representative of particular Motions,

which are seeking to fill the House with delegates. What we have said of its endeavour to intimidate and leg-rope candidates is applicable to every other body that is doing the same sort of thing. Much has been written about the tyranny of the majority, but the tyranny of organised minorities is far more serious. And it is a matter of something more than tyranny. With sectional groups seeking to turn the House of Representatives into a House of Delegates., there is a risk, unless the movement is checked, that public sentiment on a dozen questions, and even on the main national issues, may find no stable representation in Parliament at all.