Democratic Government

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 172, 18 April 1939, Page 11

Democratic Government

Sir, —As one who has always believed the basic principle of true democracy to be “government of the people by the people for the people,” I am disturbed by the suggestion that this principle is to be departed from by the party I have consistently supported. Time and again, in the hope that I may have misconstrued it, I have read the published report of the discussion and finding of the Labour Caucus relative to this matter; but the only conclusion I can draw from it is that the caucus decided to place the supreme power of final decision—-in essence the power of absolute dictatorship—in the hands of one man. That man, for the moment, is the Prime Minister, Mr. Savage, a man whom I admire and esteem. The excellence of the man in no way mitigates the blunder of those members of the caucus who lent themselves to this lamentable decision. If we are to be true to the principles of our party no man, however good, can be endowed with the power of a totalitarian autocrat, and it is, I feel sure, the hope of many sincere Labourites that their responsible organizations throughout the Dominion will take immediate steps to repudiate a decision which, in practice, would shatter the very .fundamentals of democratic government.—l am, etc., A PRIVATE IN THE ARMY. Wellington, April 15.