ELECTION PROMISES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 64, 13 September 1943, Page 4

ELECTION PROMISES

OUTSPOKEN SERMON

Certain things Were left out of election manifestos, but the things left out were very often matters that were still very live questions, remarked Archdeacon W. Bullock, when preaching in St. Peter's Church yesterday morning. Such a question Was, "Should education in New Zealand be based on Christian ethics?" The affirmation of that question was not One of the things promised, but it was certainly one of the things needed. ■ Preaching from the text, "Choose ye men of good report," Archdeacon Bullock said that electors needed to note what promises candidates did not make. The tension in a candidate's mind was always between the desire to give people what they wanted and to give them what they needed. The two things were not the same. When Mr. Churchill offered the people of Great Britain only blood and sweat and toil and tears he was not offering them what they wanted but what they needed to free the world from the menace of a terrible tyranny. The Archdeacon said he would make no apology for speaking on politics, but he had no intention of touching on party politics. New Zealand politics were producing too many "yes" men, and there were three things the electors should watch, without condemning politicians. First, that party allegiance might be too Stringent, and might not be allowing proper freedom of thought and expression to members. That was the reason, he felt, why the parties were breaking under their own weight. What Was required today was more character and less party—men who would express themselves. Electors would have to "watch the promises that were made, because for the next fortnight they would be living in a land of promises. It should always be remembered that political promises, \ like other promises, were of three kinds. There was the Al promise that the maker fully intended to keep, then there was the C 3 promise that the maker might keep if it were convenient to do so, and; finally, the "dud" promise that circumstances would not permit the maker to keep. Perhaps politicians were too prone to deal in the last two' classes. However, it should be remembered by all electors that, if a candidate went before an electorate armed only with a handful of promises, he did so because he believed that an extra large bunch of carrots was needed for an extra large bunch of donkeys.