CALL TO CITIZENS

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 149, 20 March 1933, Page 10

CALL TO CITIZENS

Legion’s Aims Stated MOVEMENT’S IDEALS First General Meeting PLANS FOR DEVELOPMENT A call Io citizens ol integrity and intelligence, reputation, and strength of character to work for the best form of government and to remove the “trammels that fettered the legislators” expresses one of the principal aims of the New Zealand Legion. Although 30 or 40 meetings have been held throughout the Dominion in connection with the 18 divisions of/he Legion during the past month, the first general meeting of members was held in the Masonic Hall on Saturday evening. About 400 were x present, including a large number of woman. An account of the progress that the movement had made was given, and its ideals, and the steps by which it hoped to attain them were fully explained. Among those who addressed the meeting were Dr. Campbell Begg and Mr. W. E. Leicester. • Mr. Campbell Begg said that on February 9 the Legion had been founded in Wellington. On the previous day, a meeting had been held, when a number of farmers, perhaps 25, representatives chosen from certain groups from Hawke’s Bay, Gisborne, Wairarapa, and from the Manawatu, had attended, to meet a number of Wellington citizens. “We also had present at that meeting members of a new political parry that was forming, and whose proposals and ideas we were interested to hear,” continued Dr. Begg. “The meeting did not agree that theirs was the right course, and a committee was appointed to consider what forms of national movement was desirable. . “Having had a preliminary meeting and the seed having been sown successfully, it became encumbent upon us to face the Dominion as a whole, and we went to Dunedin on .February 17. Since that time we have held large and. without exception, enthusiastic meetings throughout the Dominion. Course Set for Bankruptcy. “It may be said that New Zealand is merely in the grip of what the whole world has suffered, but I entirely disagree,” Mr. Begg declared. “If it were so, the purpose of the Legion would still be necessary, but not so paramount, because the fact is that we have set our course for the rocks of bankruptcy so far back as 1927. “Neither the people nor those in office were prepared to look far enough forward to see the destiny of our country if something were not done to face the situation. The time has come when the situation must be faced. We must face it with the courage it demands, and the first step is to tell the people that the position that has been reached in the Parliamentary system to-day is their responsibility and no other—it is no use criticising the legislators. “The trammels that fetter every legislator, the unfair pressure that is exercised on . them, and which paralyses the Government must be removed. We, the people of New Zealand, must draw a sponge entirely over the past, and must think how to restore prosperity in the future. “The first step of the Legion had been to get 2000 or 3000 people throughout the Dominion, all citizens of integrity and intelligence, reputation, and strength of character. Representatives from each centre would be brought together in Wellington, probably within the next fortnight, when the National Council would meet to finalise the organisation and frame the constitution. National Appeal Coming. “The next step will be a national appeal. Having got the centre of the movement laced up and the core and nucleus right, we can afford to face the possibility of disruptive elements. Our idea is,that on a given day the whole movement will be blazed abroad to call the people to put aside everything but patriotic feeling, and we shall have public enrolling booths in every town • in New Zealand,” Dr. Begg said. “In the event of a general election, we visualise a Parliament consisting of a certain number of members of the three parties of the House, reinforced by members who have never been there and whom the Legion is inducing to prepare themselves for this high office. These men will form a National Government that will go to the people with only this pledge: ‘To put into being the best form of Government administration suitable for what New Zealand can afford, and what is desirable and necessary,’ and the whole force of the Legion will be used to support them.”

Mr. W. E. Leicester paid a tribute to the work accomplished by Dr. Begg, and said that the Legion was seeking to better, not smash, the existing order of things, to improve central and local government, by constitutional means, and not to destroy them. For the present state of the Government the people had themselves to blame, but the Legion would provide a remedy and would develop a national consciousness in matters of national importance.