Society May Enter Party Politics

Press, Volume C, Issue 29565, 14 July 1961, Page 18

Society May Enter Party Politics

"The Press" Special Service

AUCKLAND, April 13. If successive governments oaid lip service to the principles of the Constitutional Society without doing anything positive about them, the society might have to reconsider its decision to remain aloof from party politics, the president <Mr J. Scott-Davidson) told the society’s annual meeting today. “Are we going to be satisled with mere tingering?” he asked. "At the rate things ire going, we have not long before we sink into complete subservience to our bureaucratic masters. Only a courageous government can change the situation and if the one we now have is not orepared to do the job we must very soon set. about finding one that will.”

There was widespread criticism of the Parliamen. tary system and of the various governments in -ecent years. Mr ScottDavidson said, but he wondered if those who complained the loudest ever r aised a finger to do anything about them. Even in the political parties themselves, rank and file members might be dissatisfied with what their party was doing but they were inclined to do nothing except complain in a futile fashion. "Last year. New Zealanders changed the government. but so far there is little to suggest that we are likely to get anything much different from the mixture as before." he continued. “Dilemma” Politicians who wanted to restore true democratic principles in government faced a dilemma. Oi’er the last 25 vears there had been a great increase in government expenditure and it had been developed so that future governments could make few changes without provoking the risk of an economic crisis. “We have now reached the very serious position that the State is spending internally half as much again as our. primary industries are earning, in export funds," he said. "We are absolutely dependent on our farmers’ earnings for our standard of living. but our whole system seems to be designed to discourage them. If private enterprise was given the green light we I could do very much better than we are doing today; but all classes of our people have been encouraged and become accustomed to go to the State for assistance in all sorts of circumstances.” Public Service

One result was that State employment had been "swollen to ridiculous dimensions” One person out of every eight in the labour force worked for the government, and many of them were clothed with great powers to interfere with and restrict the rest of the population. It was not surprising that the people were apathic and the economy sluggish, he said. "Governments are fond of telling us that we have never had it so good,” con-

tinued Mr Scott-Davidson. "We have had many years of record prosperity, yet our national debt has never risen so fast except in war years. The Government is so desperate for money that it is planning to join the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. I refuse to believe that we can borrow ourselves into prosperity as a nation any more than as private individuals.” An increasing proportion of the population was being kept in non-productive em. ployment, he said. The new government did not seem to have the courage to grapple with the problem of topheavy State administrative costs. It had become increasingly obvious that the Royal Commission on the Public Service would be confined to minor matters and kept clear of such obvious necessary reforms as reduction in the size of the departments and reduction in the powers exercised by those departments under delegated legislation. ''f the society’s work, Mr Scott-Davidson said that while great progress had been made, there was a tremendous backlog of mismanagement to overcome before the country was put back on the right path. If it had the active support of all who said the society was doing a good job, it would be well on the way to success; but it was rather a New Zealand characteristic to stand on the sidelines and praise or criticise whose doing the work.