LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Security

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31097, 28 June 1966, Page 16

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Security

Sir, —I came upon a thought-provoking side-effect of our Security Service while canvassing for new members for the Keynesian Progr°s Party over the week-end. One person who had seemed keenly interested in the party on a previous visit, now frankly confessed that seeing Brigadier Gilbert on television had made him think again. “I would like to have a list of all the organisations he is interested in,” he said. “You’re not suggesting that he would be interested in the Keynesian Progress Party, are you?” I asked. “No, but one has to be cautious.” This shows how easily an atmosphere of fear, acting against anything new, can be created. If the Labour Party wins the coming election, it is to be hoped that it will give the public a clearer insight into security agents’ activities, and thus reduce irrational' anxieties.—Yours, etc., MARK D. SADLER. June 27, 1966. Sir,—The integrity of Brigadier Gilbert and the justification for security services need not be questioned for one to remain alarmed about the application of these services in New Zealand today. The Labour Party and many non-Communist groups and individuals believe the Government is acting illegally and immorally, and courting New Zealand’s destruction in a World War 111 by its support for United States escalation in Vietnam. However, the Government believes all ways, means, and risks are justified, because it claims (many think mistakenly) that we are opposing Communist aggression in Vietnam. As he controls security, which defines communism as the chief enemy, the Prime Minister may become a kind of high priest, with the monarchical power to label anti-Govemment opposition on foreign policy as subversive or pro-Communist. To protect democracy against the abuse of power, a security commission, rather than a politician, should control

the Security Service. —Yours, etc., L. F. J. ROSS. June 27, 1966. Sir, —Your correspondents are having difficulty in defining a Communist. Would Fowler’s definition help? “Socialism, communism and anarchism each stands for a state of things, or a striving after it that differs much from that which we know: and for many of us who are comfortably off in the world as it is, they have consequently come to be the positive, comparative, and superlative, distinguished not in kind but in degree only, of the terms of abuse applicable to those who would disturb our peace.”—Yours, etc., B. COTTRILL. June 27, 1966.

Sir, —In reply to “Civil Liberties,” it is quite useless to try to whitewash communism by calling it nonconformist. There is a great difference. Our Security Service knows much more than the man in the street what goes on, and any person with a grain of common sense knows it is for our own protection. 1 repeat what I said before: if v. 3 have nothing to hide, we have nothing to fear. If we were ever unfortunate enough to be under a Communist regime, there would be no civil liberty or any other kind. “P.J.A." mentions in his letter in defence of Communist China, “woe betide any intellectual who would think himself on a different level to the worker.” That does not! sound like freedo ■ of thought or freedom of anything. Not even nonconformist.—Yours, etc., A.R. June 27, 1966.

Sir, —I think that for the benefit of “A.R.” a definition of a Communist should be published. I understand, and I have not found a dictionary to prove me wrong, that a Communist is one who believes in State ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange. The word itself is synonymous with “socialist,” and even if one considers communism impractical he cannot regard it as sinful. Plato (circa 392 8.C.) set out an impractical form of it in the “Republic”: the early Christians actively practised it (Act 11, 44, 45 and IV, 34, 35); Robert Owen founded a Communist colony which was a dismal failure. The intellectuals of the Fabian Society, including our own Pember Reeves, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, and Bernard Shaw, set communism on a firm footing. The ashes of Sidney and Beatrice Webb have been interred in Westminster Abbey, surely a strange place for the remains of Communists to rest, or is it?—Yours, etc., QUERCUS. June 26, 1966. [This correspondence is now closed.—Ed., “The Press.”]