GOING TOO FAR

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 23, 28 January 1944, Page 4

GOING TOO FAR

When it was announced that New Zealand and Australian Ministers were to confer in Canberra it was generally understood that the negotiations would be as between Government and Government. Since the signing of the Anzac Pact, however, the discussions between the representatives of the two countries have assumed a different complexion. The Prime Minister (Mr. Fraser) and his two Cabinet colleagues, together with the secretary of the New Zealand Labour Party (Mr. Moohan), have been conferring with

the executive of the Australian Labour Party, and cabled reports show that the subjects discussed have taken a much wider sweep than many people will think desirable. We have already expressed the opinion that the action of a Ministerial delegation charged with representing the people as a whole in taking part in purely party political negotiations was open to serious question. Later messages from Canberra —and there appears to be no reason to question their authority— suggest that the party conference has been concerning itself with subjects which should be dealt with on a I Government-to-Government basis. A recent message reported that "the preliminary discussions indicate that the present conference will favour the drafting of a Pacific Labour charter which will include certain clauses of the Anzac Pact and will contain special clauses for a joint AustraliaNew Zealand tariff policy, revision of the Ottawa Treaty in the light of the Atlantic Charter, and the lifting of the trade restrictions now existing between Australia and New Zealand." However desirable it may be that the two countries should reach a common understanding on important issues and that past differences should be settled, the settlement cannot be negotiated by bodies which represent only a section of the people. In New Zealand since 1935 extra-Parliamentary organisations such as the Labour Conference and the Federation of Labour have in many ways assumed functions which should be exercised solely by the Government. That is undesirable enough. The practice becomes even more undesirable when it is extended to the wider field of inter-Dominion relations. The responsibility for deciding future policy belongs to the Governments of the two countries and not to bodies which represent a section of the people. It is t one thing for kindred organisations to get together to discuss common problems, but it is another thing when they attempt to assume powers which do not properly belong to them. It is a case of the tail—or part of the tail—trying to wag the whole dog.