LEGION OR PARTY?

Evening Star, Issue 21711, 4 May 1934, Page 8

LEGION OR PARTY?

The New Zealand Legion aims at something more than the pressing of a programme to be adopted by Parliament. It aims at a reconstruction of Parliament, concrete and also spiritual. But that reconstruction—the concrete part of it at least—can only be effected in the final stage by Parliament itself. Hence it has been judged necessary that the Legion should' have a programme, to be adopted by candidates, giving assurance that when it is sufficiently represented in Parliament its ideas for concrete reconstruction will be carried out. It is not clear that the Legion has hastened the day of its decisive influence in taking that course. When it first began more than a year ago it was understood that its first object was to be a moral and educational influence. No doubt that is still its first object. But so much has been added to it for the sake of specific direction that a thousand differences of opinion are likely to be caused where the first broad objectives could meet onlj with approval from earnest minds. It was not necessary for Dr Begg to declare at this stage that the Legion intends to take an active part in the next election. For that purpose it was founded, but the precise part it aspires to play seems not unlikely to make confusion worse confounded. The Legion, it has been reiterated time and again, is not a political party. It desires to get rid of parties. Now, however, it proposes to put up candidates of its own, some of them belonging to present parties and-others new men. with the objc:t of forming a “ bloc"’ in the

House—the word seems most appropriate—which will work for the Legion’s programme. The question that arises is: “Will the ‘ bloc,’ or the Legion itself, be any different from a party?” Tho programme it has put forward is so far-reaching, extending into so many spheres, that its leader has much cause to admit its difficulties, though he believes they arc not insoluble. “ The substitution of a few shires in place of hundreds of existing local bodies, with a corresponding reduction in the size of Parliament, and in addition a permanent council representing business, trades, and agriculture, to guide Parliament in economic matters,” are first among its proposals. In addition there is the “ planned immigration scheme to bring the population to three millions within fifteen years,” sought to be bound up with the National Debt for the alleviation of the latter’s burden. It would be interesting to know how many of the Legion’s own members have really digested and approved these and other schemes. Government would bo by an elective executive—one of the most debatable of proposals. Elections would be by the preferential vote in singlemember constituencies, a system with Its own disadvantages, most unlikely to be adopted in time to prevent votesplitting at the next election. Dr Begg thinks that vote-splitting to the advantage of the Labour Party has been an exaggerated fear, but that party, just as often as they increase the size of the field, will most certainly welcome his candidates, and the prospect of any Labour members joining the Legion may as well be dismissed at once. Labour is the most exclusive of parties, with its own programme and its own Constitution extorting a single faith. As to economic planning, we have Mr Coates pronouncing: “I am definitely a planner. For the life of me I cannot see how in the present economic conditions we shall get anywhere unless we have a plan.” The alternative course for the Legion was to continue to strive to be a moral and an educational influence, impressing on the individual voter his responsibility to vote for tho best man, not the man promising most, and giving no more than a general lead for reconstruction to the Parliament that in that manner would be constituted. If the men are the right men the machine will improve its own working.