Mr Langstone's Resignation

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23845, 14 January 1943, Page 2

Mr Langstone's Resignation

Reasons given by Mr F. Langstone, the former Minister of Lands, to a public meeting in Taumarunui, for his resignation of the position of High Commissioner in Canada make sorry reading. Much of what Mr Langstone said was very distantly related to the question of his resignation, though it contributed something to behind-the-scenes history of the Labour Party and Cabinet and to front-stage revelation of wounded self-importance. What was, after all, most significant was Mr Langstone’s naive admission that he had “no special qualifica- “ tions ” for the Washington post; but that did not prevent him from believing that he “could help in “ representing New Zealand during " the reconstruction and rehabilita- “ tion days to come, when Washing- “ ton would be the most important “ place in the world,” Nothing in Mr Langstone’s record, or his account of his grievance, or his interpretation of the Prime Minister’s decision, will persuade more than a thoughtless few that it was a wrong decision which set Mr Nash’s qualifications above Mr Langstone’s. What has astounded and disturbed many, however, is the disclosure — Mr Fraser's own—that he had thought of sending Mr Langstone to Washington and, if the situation in the Pacific had not changed, would have sent him. For the rest, it is perhaps necessary to say only that the one special qualification which Mr Langstone did claim, as a strong and sufficient one, is no qualification at all. Mr Langstone is New Zealand-born, and he thought “a “New Zealand-born Minister should I “have been selected." lie did! not explain, perhaps believing that! the truth of the proposition is] self-evident. What is self-evident,! rather, is its absurdity, New Zea-J

land has had many public men of quality who were born in this country, but it is doubtful whether any of them would have claimed any special merit from that circumstance. An overwhelming majority of New Zealand’s Premiers, for instance, were born outside New Zealand, but no one would say that they were any worse New Zealanders for that. It is fair to Mr Langstone to say that probably no one would have been more conscientious, according to his lights, than he; but that is not enough, as his utterances at Taumarunui, those of a small political mind working in a small political groove, have plainly betrayed.