PARLIAMENTARY RULE

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 January 1930, Page 8

PARLIAMENTARY RULE

C. B. SHAW’S LECTURE.

Lecturing recently to tho Fabian Society My. Bernard Shaw ,whose subject was “Random Speculations,” proceeded at such a rate that the Fabians hurrying after him had hardly enough energy left with which to. applaud. He bad only himself to thank when - the first question sent up showed that the questioner had misunderstood one of his points, and the audience probably sympathised more with the questioner than with Mr. Chaw’s protest that “this was how a quite innocent question could be misinterpreted.” But it was very good fun while it lasted, and it lasted for nearly an hour and a half. Mr. Shaw said that everyone knew tho present political machinery could not work a Socialist system. It could not, indeed, work the present and that was a fact that women realised. Mrs Snowden, instead of accepting the obsolete working of the party system, had suddenly seized the heads of Mr. Thomas, Mr. Lloyd George, and Mr. Baldwin, knocked them together and said, “What in heaven do you three think you are doing?” She knew a great deal about the unemployment question, and knew that one great difficulty was that a large number of the unemployed were unemployable. Wanting to get something done, she took no notice of the fa-t .that anything done must be done by Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, and that all Mr. LloVd George and Mr. Baldwin had to do was to prevent his doing it- ~ “I don’t wonder at. Mts Snowden,” he said. He added that a good play might bo made called “The Fury of Ellen Wilkinson.” She was furious at seeing the little bit of business about widows’ pensions, which could have been disposed of by any decent assembly in an hour or two, leading to all-night sittings. That , app'alling waste of time was part of the party system. My friend Margaret Bondfield, who goes on with a big job, finds herself not in the position of a leader of thought but in that of a maid-of-all-work in an enormous house with no labour-saving contrivance. We may lay down programmes for the next ten years, but the things will not be done. The Conservative party were blamed for not getting things done, and the Labour party will be blamed for not getting things done, but they will be struggling against obsolete machinery. The time will come when Mr. Maxton will be in tho Cabinet, and ho will find himself' up against the same distinctions;”

DICTATORSHIPS ABROAD.

Other nations, said Mr. Shaw, had not been faced with the failure of their political machinery, and Italy, Spain, Serbia and Poland had established. dictatorships of one form or another. We had an idea that such things could not happen to a solid Englishman, but he did not share that confidence. lie believed that most people concerned with government in this country would admit they were almost distracted. They blamed one another for what wa.s really the fault of a completely obsolete machine. If the reforms desired were to be carried out new machinery must be created and we must change our culture to do it. If we did not do it what was the alternative? “The apple cart,” said Mr. Shaw. Having sufficiently entertained his audience with a picture of England under apple cart conditions, he gave them his alternative scheme. For one tiling we should’ need an extension of* League of Nations diplomacy in this country. Wo should need a foreign office, but instead of backstairs agreements we should want a council .of ambassti’dbrs ilibeting with the Foreign Secretary and' transacting their business openly. We should meed several parliaments, a' commonwealth parliament, , a federal parliament for the ■British fslds, With separate parliaments for each of the nations, including Scotland; a political parliament and a.n industrial parliament. Enthusiastically Mr Shaw added, “at least ten regional parliaments to deal with England’s local affairs.” The electors must be able to select their own representatives, but those representatives must be chosen from the thousands of men who were considered qualified to be placed on a parliamentary panel. Without some such scheme as this reforms were impossible. Coming to the great question of the new culture, Mr Shaw said the culture at present predominant in this country was that of the governing classes, which had filtered right down to the elementary schools. It was the robberbaron morality of the feudal system. After some lively excursions into the recent, history of the robber-baroiis, Mr Shaw turned to praise Russia for having realised that, the whole future of the new State depended on the education of the children. From the beginning Russia had decided that no persons who had been trained at institutions equivalent to English universities or public schools should be allowed to come into contact with the children.

“1 have no hesitation in telling you,” said Mr Shaw, “that if some strange accident upset everything in this country and made me dictator, no man who had. been from Eton to Oxford or from Harrow to Cambridge or from Woodwich to Sandhurst should ever come within a mile of an English child if I could help it. Yes, you applaud, but do you know that one of the items in the old Fabian programme was ‘the ladder of learning to the universities?’ Olio of the first actions of an intelligent Government would ba to make a law disqualifying graduates or undergraduates of our universities from all public employment, making (hem ineligible- for election to public bodies, and disqualifying them for the position of teachers.”