CORRESPONDENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 100, 29 April 1936, Page 10

CORRESPONDENCE

MANNERS OF PARLIAMENT

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—"Judge not thy friend until, thou standest in his shoes." May I remind "A Woman, One of the Army of Workers," of the above quotation by Rabbi Hillel. In criticising the manners of the Prime Minister and his colleagues she indirectly condemns the manners of the people whom they represent. I, as a New Zealander, strongly protest. On reading her letter, I at once turned to my newspaper file and read the Prime Minister's speech at the opening of Parliament, an able, forceful, and courteous speech though righteously indignant when he refers to the propaganda of those opposed to legislation, drawn up to bring about the resurrection of New Zealand from the swamps of despair. The Prime Minister referred to such Auckland propagandists as "The Kelly Gang," a quite correct term introduced many years ago. There is nothing unmannerly in the term, but one can quite understand the righteous indignation prompting the term. Do not the remarks of Cicero apply, "It often happens that friends need remonstrance and even reproof"? Defending one's position is courageous, not impolite or unmannerly. "A Woman, One of the Army of Workers" may rest assured that the gentlemen of the Labour Government and the people whom they represent will not act in any manner detrimental to the manners of compatriots. As Smiles wrote, "There are many tests by which a gentleman may be known, but there is one that never fails. How does he exercise power over those subordinate to him? How does he conduct • himself towards women arid children. He who bullies those who are not in a position to resist may be a snob, but cannot be a gentleman. He who tyrannises over the weak and helpless may .be a coward, but no true man." Again, Emerson says, "The secret of culture is to learn that a few great points steadily reappear alike in the poverty of the obscurest farm, and in the miscellany of metropolitan life, and that these few are alone to be regarded— the escape from all false tfes, courage to be what we are, and the love of what is -simple and beautiful—these and the wish to serve, to add somewhat to the well-being of men." In conclusion, to the thoughtful, just minds, it will be admitted that the Hon. M. J. Savage, Prime Minister, and his colleagues of the Labour Government respond minutely to the above definitions of culture and tests of gentlemen; hence the good-will compliment that New Zealanders ' are Nature's gentlefolk, paid by Lord and Lady Bledisloe,, is, and always will be, held in safe keeping by the Labour Government of New Zealand.—-I am, etc., ' OBSERVANT NATURE'S GENTLEWOMAN UNKNOWN TO LABOUR PARTY.