PARISH CONTROL

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 24, 28 July 1933, Page 9

PARISH CONTROL

LOCAL BODY PROBLEM

ADDRESS BY LEGION LEADER

TIME OF DECISION

. "Must wo always be known as a prematurely-aged community that has lost tho power of daring action: senile, unimaginative, a people of learners, of opportunists and paroehialists?" asked Dr. E. Campbell Bcgg last night of his audience at Rosencath, when giving an address on Legion affairs. llu said that New Zealand was getting a very poor reputation on account of tho real rulers of the country being small groups of local body members who were an obstruction to any attempt made by the Dominion to ..free itself from parish control. Unless the present Government or any Government decided what legislation was necessary and put it into effect it simply-meant that the people were being betrayed and the Government had abrogated its powers to govern, and handed them over to a bureaucratic and parochial minority.

The Government was unable to assert tlio sovereignty of the State, declared Dr. Begg. "Members of couni.y councils and other local bodies wero elected to look after their own particular job. They were never elected to adjudicate on national policy, in respect to government. There is no reason to think that, as a body, they have tho qualification for it. How many have been in other countries and studied their systems? How many have ■ made a study of the political scienco ' of national and local government at all? The riding system, has tended to make the limits of vision the limits of the riding. There is something pitiful and tragic to see Ministers of the Crown now, and in the past, bringing down national measures which have the sanction of some of our greatest legislators, which are known tp be good and essential; to see them ■ gradually weakening and compromising from .first to last in these conferences, yielding one principle after another to the demands of the parishes and finally thanking the conference for their splendid contribution, after they have sabotaged every single principle of the plan on which the conference was based."

The time for decision had arrived, Dr. Begg went on to say, and the Legion called on every mayor, councillor, and member of local bodies throughout New Zealand to come out boldly and support thorough local body reform. This would be the first step towards the solution of economic difficulties. "Thrown, more on oiir own resources as wo shall be, wo must strengthen at every point and consolidate our internal economy, our internal government, and our internal administration. The latter must be reduced to its simplest form, because its simplest form will be its most efficient.

"Wo must transfer the wealth and resources used in the barren by-paths of unwieldy administration for the building up of our economic life and for the planned social services that are the people's right. The problem of adequate wages and amenities for all, and that of adequate social services, would be best solved by attention to this problem. That is why it assumes a fundamental importance which is so little realied. It must be handled with the decision of strong men backed by the people, and any smoke-screens put up to balk the people's will and the people's rights must be penetrated and dispersed. It is to be hoped that wo shall see an end of this vacillation and defeatism which ' will only serve to drive the people to despondency and hopelessness. "I hope that every ' centre of the Legion will show in'iio-uncertain way that the national consciousness is awakening, that they Will indicate.to those concerned that no attention to duly in the potty details of local administration will condone ignorance, prejudice, . and self-interest which is against the* welfare of the country; that the centres will get solidly behind the local body members who will support the nation and make it quite clear to tho others they will never again be in a position to exercise parochial pressure to deter a timid Government from the exercise of its clear duty and responsibility; that through Press propaganda and personal influence they will counteract tho baneful influence in , every part of New' Zealand, and give [this country a: chance to show that it can think as a nation and not as a congeries of parishes."