Evening Post

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 65, 14 September 1943, Page 4

Evening Post.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1943

OFFICIALS OR MEN

The people of New Zealand this month are being called upon to give their verdict on vital issues, and the effect that their decision will have on the future of the Dominion should be clearly understood. Broadly speaking, New Zealand is faced with one main issue—whether there is to be a continuation of the policy which the Labour Party has followed for nearly eight years or whether the principles enunciated by the National Party are to be the guide to the future. Between the policies of the two main parties there are clear-cut differences. The Labour Party . pledges itself, both in its manifesto and in the words of the Prime Minister, to a policy which on the record of its past administration means an ever-increasing measure of State control, with' all its accompanying undesirable features of regimentation and lack of opportunity for selfexpression by the individual. The National Party, while recognising that there are directions in which State enterprise and guidance are essential to good government, . offers to individuals and to collections of individuals the right to manage their own affairs in their own way, untrammelled by all sorts of irksome restrictions and cumbersome regulations. The National Party does not assume, as the Labour Party assumes, that the State is better fitted in all ways to face the tasks of the present and the future than private enterprise; rather, it offers private enterprise the opportunity of making the fullest possible contribution, assisted where necessary by the machinery which the State is able to create, not so much for the purpose of controlling as of guiding.

Electors are hot only asked to give their judgment on the past administrative acts of the Government: they also have the responsibility of setting the course for the next three years, which, it is hoped, will mark at least the beginning of the post-war era. The widest view should be taken of all the issues involved. It is not only necessary to examine what the respective policies offer for the immediate future; it is necessary to examine them also in the light of conditions that will prevail when the war has been" won. World leaders have been focusing their attention-on these questions, and the conclusions they have reached should be carefully studied by all those who* have the future welfare of New Zealand at heart, for in the new orderthat emerges from the war this country will have a part to play, not as a self-contained unit, but as a member of a community of nations working towards a common ideal. What is that ideal to be? In a notable broadcast in March last on post-war policy, Mr. Churchill laid down certain basic principles which cannot fail to strike a responsive note in the hearts of all those who treasure liberty and detest bureaucracy and all it implies. "In moving steadily and steadfastly from a class to a national foundation in the politics and economics of our society and civilisation," he said, "we must not forget the glories of the pas.t, nor how many battles we have fought for the rights of the individual and for human freedom."

In another moving passage, Mr. Churchill made clear his detestation of bureaucracy and of everything that discourages the twin virtues of enterprise and thr^t. "We must beware," said the Prime fpinisterj "of trying to build a society in which nobody counts for anything except a politician or an official, a society where enterprise gains no reward and thrift no privileges. I say , 'trying to build' because of all races in the world our people would be the last to consent to be governed by a bureaucracy. Freedom is in their life-blood." These words have a special significance for New Zealanders, who during the last eight years have learnt from experience what bureaucratic control, with its emphasis on the supremacy of the State over the individual, really means. There are few directions in which its influence has not been felt. Controls during wartime are inevitable, but Labour cannot use that as an excuse for what has taken place. State interference and control were established features of the Government's legislative and administrative acts long before the war came, and the Government would have difficulty in successfully refuting a charge that it has used the present emergency as a cloak for extending the move towards bureaucracy. The question the people of New Zealand must ask themselves this 'month is whether they desire a continuation of the stifling regimentation which has marked Labour's administration, or whether they desire, in the words of the National Party's manifesto, "the restoration to' New Zealanders of their fundamental British right of freedom to live their own lives in their own way, without bureaucratic control, in a system of competitive private enterprise." On their answer will depend both New Zealand's course in the immediate future, and the course it is to follow in the difficult post-war period.