THE NEW ZEALAND LEGION

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20978, 5 October 1933, Page 14

THE NEW ZEALAND LEGION

TO IHB EDITOB OF THE PBESS Sir, —If I were to follow Mr T. E. Williamson in his methods of controversy, I feel our present little difference of opinion as to the merits or demerits of the New Zealand Legion would speedily become nothing better than a slanging competition after the manner of our Parliament. I prefer that we should cut out such cackle—which really has its roots in egotism —and argue, not about our respective excellences or defects, but about the legion and its objects. For this occasion I may be allowed tc follow my critic and annotate briefly his obiter dicta. It does not matter a dump whether Mr' Williamson is angry or expensively genial, as he declares himself to be. His language was the language of an angry man cursing a movement he detested but whose steady progress he could not retard. Might I suggest to him that he will have to hit much harder and much straighter before he hears "plaintive howls of protest" from this quarter. Really, Mr Williamson takes himself too seriously. My remark as to his standing and quality as a critic has evidently got under his skin. But I do not apologise for that. When we know that a critic has a passion for iconoclasm and appears to think along the crooked lines of "whatever is. is wrong" we are able to place him immediately and appraise the value of his criticism. Today his taunt of anonymity "cuts no ice." That is largely owing to the very excellent correspondence page in "The Press," where from day to day

current questions are discussed by anonymous correspondents, intelligently and interestingly. Does Mr Williamson really hug the foolish delusion . that his. letters possess an extra merit or authority because he attaches his name to them? Will he say that my opinions are worthless because I do not sign. them—I who am wholly unknown, unimportant and inconspicuous? And, if I might hint it without offence, Mr Williamson is equally undistinguished. Why then make a virtue of signing one's name unless one wants the name advertised? I decline the invitation to a public debate in Christchurch for several reasons. lam modest enough to think that a debate between two such nonentities would not attract any public interest. I do not think that such a debate would advance his side or mine. I fear that its chief purpose would simply be to pander to our vanity. I have studied several people who love to issue such challenges and find they do so to display their amazing cleverness and indulge their self-conceit. A modest man

: like me would never willingly appear in such a gallery . Mr Williamson, as a critic of dialectics is as absurd as when he delivers the law upon politics. Gleefully he picks upon a phrase of mine deliberated chosen by me—that in which I said that I know scores of people who "read the 'Revelations of Hansard* eagerly (if disgustedly) and regretted their cessation." He proceeds to show that people cannot be interested and disgusted at the same time. Let me enlighten my critic by a simple apologue. A houETD owner has his attention drawn to his defective drains. He is interested, but when he looks on the opened drains he is disgusted at the unsavoury mess revealed. Interest and disgust are blended but both his interest and his disgust will continue until the whole evil is uncovered and then put right. The "Revelations of Hansard" served to show people what kind of a Parliament they have. Naturally they want more information, and so would welcome (and read disgustedly) further Revelations from Hansard. And the greater the disgust, the more thorough will be the reform of Parliament. To see a legion member cheer Mr Forbes or Mr Coates or Mr Holland is not the inconsistency Mr Williamson imagines. The legion gives perfect liberty of political thought to all its members, but it aims at a parliament where members of diverse political views will combine for the common good by compromise and concession on all sides rather than as at present use the public interest as a pawn in | the party game for party profit. The legion is carrying on steadily in its educational work. It may presently extend even to the wilds of Domett. Mr Williamson, straining to make a dialectical point, recalls something said by another correspondent,, "Sumner." The matter is unimportant. The effort to make a point of it is ridiculous. If Mr Williamson addresses his remarks direct to "Sumner" I am quite sure that gentleman can look after himself. His advice to the legion as to what it should do is naive. His lefthanded compliments are merely impudent, and only an attempt to be clever. —Yours, etc., LEGIONARY. October 4, 193? »