PARTIES AND PRINCIPLES

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 136, 6 December 1919, Page 6

PARTIES AND PRINCIPLES

/When, as sometimes happens, the clashl between political parties centres in an outstanding principle, with a clear-cut issue between the antagonists, the system of party politics appears at its best. For instance, a few years ago the Labour Party in Australia stood boldly for greater Federal powers as against existing "State rights," and it promoted referenda in which Labour was definitely on one side, and Liberalism definitely on the otl/er. Those were' the days when men who believed above all things in a stronger Federation were bound by principle to the side of Fisher and Hughes, and when the Cook group were State righters by conviction. But in the interim principles and parties have become weirdly mixed. Expelled from the Labour Party on compulsory military service, Mr. Hughes is now found, in conjunction with Sir Joseph Cook, promoting another referendum to secure greater Federal powers; and it is Labour that hesitates to support an instalment of what it formerly considered essential. Yesterday's cablegrams state :

The Labour ranks axe divided on the question of the referendum, which previously was ono of the strong- Labour planks. The fact of it being- a Government measure is largely responsible for tho present opposition.

What more striking illustration could there be of the perversion of principle by partyism?

There is, of course, no copyright in political principles. Even if there was, any politician devoted to a principle would gladly assist its promotion; by any party whatever. When the reverse happens—when people wobble on their accepted principle because the party label attached to it is somebody else's— the insincerity of partyism is at once confessed. Here in New Zealand the political situation has already reached the stage when no outstanding principle separates the two main parties; worse still, it is reaching the stage when, owing to window-dressing tactics, the bulk of the competitors for electoral favour seem to stand for nearly everything. No longer is it the aim to put in the forefront a concise and understandable fighting platform; instead, there is a general tendency to leave nothing out—to stand for everything in sight and for nothing in particular. Run on such hypocritical, unreal lines, a party fight no longer offers its only redeeming feature—a clear-cut issue. In view of the almost universal scope of modern candidates' "convictions," it is rather amusing, when some chestnutty proposition trips lightly from a speaker's lips, to heaij the 'querulous interjection : "Pinched from the Labour Watform." Generally_jEeaMng^___._is ftrue_ in the-I^il)e_r--policx~is jJ_ot--new, land what, is-new^-is-_ot-trueA_The man the country needs is not he who calls *a principle his own. The important person is he who gives it practical effect. And everyone knows that more than half of the average party platform— possibly more than three-quarters—is in no serious danger of reaching reality within the public career of its lip-servers. In this respect the Australian Labour Party has been neither better nor worse than other parties. But it will put up a record in political hypocrisy if it does not support solidly the proposal for which it did the cleanest fighting in its history—the strengthening of the Federal powers.

The legend "measures not men" infers that principle is safer with.parties than with individuals. This we question. Modern experience does not bear it out. The man of principle is usually the man of independent character and ability, he who will not bo the slave of a party machine. Therefore, there is a chance that "men and measures" will succeed where "measures not men" fails. But-first-of all it is necessary to find the right men, and tho number of them now on tho hustings is very few.