RESIGNATION AS MEMBER

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22492, 29 August 1938, Page 12

RESIGNATION AS MEMBER

MR W. B. BRAY AND

LABOUR PARTY

“PEOPLE’S INTERESTS ‘

. OVERRIDDEN”

REPRIMAND FOR DELEGATE AT EASTER CONFERENCE

A definite cleavage between the Labour Party and the monetary reform advocates of New Zealand may follow the resignation from the party of Mr W. B, Bray, recognised leader of the Douglas Social Credit Movement in Zealand and for long a prominent supporter of credit reform. Mr Bray has handed his resignation to the Woolston branch of the Labour Party, of which he has been a member, alleging that he cannot subscribe to what he calls the “undemocratic” methods of Labour Party administrators. As an alternative to his resignation he demands the resignation of Mr T. H. McCombs, member for Lyttelton.

Mr Bray’s letter to the Woolston branch follows:—That the Social Security scheme, as far as it applies to superannuation, is merely an “extended pensions scheme” is the view of the proposals taken by the New Zealand Farmers’ Union and emphasised in an official statement issued by the union. The statement finds fault with the scheme, too, in that it delegates too wide powers to the proposed Social Security Commissioners.

“In view of the tendency of the party to override the interests of the people as a whole in favour of the interests vested in the party, I have come to the conclusion that I cannot continue to support the policy and methods by which the policy is implemented. My experience of the undemocratic methods by which discussion is restricted and blocked at the party conference convinces me that there is nothing in the suggestion once made to me by Mr R. M. Macfarlane that before I could criticise the Labour Party I should exercise the right I had to go into the party and persuade them of a better policy. I am satisfied that just as thfe members are defeated individually in the conference so are the electors defeated individually in the caucus. I have decided that I cannot support any party which makes decisions behind closed doors, and as my policy in future is to see that decisions are made in public I cannot any longer remain a member of the party. You can have no option but accepting this my resignation. Any regrets on my part are tempered by the interesting experience of being reprimanded bv a branch which preferred doing that to asserting its rights over its servants, the executive of the party, responsible for a flagrant disregard of the rights of the members, through their branches. If your executive are not satisfied with my reasons I am quite willing to meet the branch personally to explain them, but I can assure you that the only alternative to my resignation is that the branch ask for the resignation of the member for Lyttelton. And if I have judged the "party spirit” correctly, I am asking for the impossible. And so be it.” "Flans Not Clear”

The failure of the Labour Party to make clear its intentions about its methods of finding money for State purposes is given by Mr Bray as liis reason for resigning. In a statement he made to “The Press" last evening, he said that when he put forward his views by circular at the last Easter Labour conference, he had been severely reprimanded by the chairman. Mr James Roberts, who had advised delegates to “tear the circular up.” “My reason for resigning is that the party has not carried out its election pledges and will not give the public a straight-out answer as to its intentions regarding the debt system of finding money for its purposes,” Mr Bray said. “The party promises to increase the buying power of the people. It has increased the incomes of sections at the expense of other sections of the people, and at . the expense of all through a rise in prices. Its promises regarding the abolition of sales and exchange taxes are now found to have strings attached, and it is becoming clear, that in spite of all their protestations about the heed for the reform of the monetary system, they are just as eager as any other Government to play the game for the credit monopolists, by acting as tax collectors. , “They are obsessed with the idea that we need to be governed and that thev are experts who know just what is good for us. Under the guise of Socialism they would divide us (by taxation) and rule, and in that respect they are no more and no less respectable than the governments being opposed by Labour in other so-called democratic countries.

“I joined the Labour Party in an earnest endeavour to get them to see the folly of playing the game under the rules imposed by big finance, which is international and extra national, I had it put up to me that I had no business to stand off and criticise, but that if I had better ideas I had every right to go into the party and convince its members of the soundness of the alternative. My experience is that the party is controlled by a small group, the members of which, having a vested interest in their executive jobs, are more concerned with the fate of the party as a party than with the interests of the whole of the people. A New Objective “We see this in their revenge complex,” Mr Bray said, "and unfortunately those against , whom they array themselves do not help matters. They too play the party game instead _of co-operating with them and altering the conventions under which society is organised. I attempted this by suggesting Another definition of objective, aiming at a direct result itself instead of the old one pf Socialism, which is not a result but a method. Having obtained Socialism, we could spend much tune deciding what we were going to do with the organisation. For instance. Socialism could be applied to the armament industry, but no one would suggest that the delivery of shells to the members of the State would be beneficial then.” , , , Mr Bray was the delegate for the Woolston branch of the party at the last Easter conference in Wellington. He issued a circular at the conference complaining of the excision of some of the remits sent forward by his branch for approval to the National Executive-of the narty and subsequent inclusion in the agenda paper for the conference. He said in his statement to “The Press” that a remit suggesting an alteration in the objective of the party had been mutilated before circulation to the branches and that one on banking control—aiming at the licensing of banks and banking officials —passed by the Woolston branch had been cut off the agenda paper and merely “referred to the Parliamentary Executive for action, if necessary.” “My own alternative is certainly not in joining another party.” Mr Bray said “Because in my, opinion the elector is ■defeated by the party system, which makes its decision in caucus behind closed doors.”