WAR ADMINISTRATION

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 July 1942, Page 8

WAR ADMINISTRATION

DOWNIE STEWART’S COMMENT. DUNEDIN, July 1. Interviewed to-day on the subject of the newly-constituted War Administration, the Hon. W. Downie Stewart said that the most dangerous feature of the Prime Minister’s “strange new form of government” had already revealed itself. “That danger,” Mr. Stewart said, “consists in his fierce objection to any criticism of the merits Of the scheme. By his creation of a hybrid Government, in which a party Cabinet and a non-party Cabinet are run in double harness, he has practically suppressed all effective criticism within the walls of Parliament, and now, apparently, he desires to suppress outside criticism at well. If, however, all criticism is to be regarded as unpatriotic we are well on the way to the creation of a dictatorship suggestive of the totalitarian state.

“Under the National Government in England free criticism still flourishes. It is, indeed, welcomed byMr. Churchill. If a National Government proved unattainable in New Zealand, it is possible to sympathise with the Prime Minister who no doubt did his best to form one. But if the parties in Parliament abandon their right of criticism that is no reason why the Press and public should be gagged. “It is certainly wise,” Mr. Stewart said, “to avoid an election for a reasonable time, so long as the public has confidence in our war effort, even under this grotesque mixture of party and non-party government. But to announce at this stage that there will be no election until one year after the war finishes goes too far, lor, according to some overseas strategists, the war may go on for five or six years. In the Prime Minister’s suggestion that if they cling to office too long the Governor ? Genera- can order an election there is an element of humour, in view of the Labour Party’s constant claim, which may be correct from a constitutional point of view, that the Governor-General can only order an election if his Prime Minister so advises.”