Greymouth Evening Star. MONDAY, MARCH 4, 1946. A DEMOCRATIC RIGHT DENIED.

Greymouth Evening Star, 4 March 1946, Page 4

Greymouth Evening Star. MONDAY, MARCH 4, 1946. A DEMOCRATIC RIGHT DENIED.

DEMOCRACY, as it is understood in English-speaking countries, requires for its effective functioning Parliamentary Government, which itself cannot function without a properly-elected and qualified Opposition. That section of the commun-

ity which is given to sober thinking and it is large—must therefore have read with misgiving the account of the disgraceful tactics of the large audience at Huntly which refused to allow the National Party candidate in the Raglan by-election to state his policy and then attempted, by making noises more suited to the jungle, to prevent the Leader of the Opposition from speaking. A certain amount of heckling and friendly banter has come to be traditionally associated with an election campaign, but a concerted effort to howl, down an opponent is in a different category. It is an offence which should not be tolerated in a democratic community. This is not the first occasion on which these tactics have been employed by supporters of the Government to prevent a member of the Opposition party from stating what he believes to be the truth, and yet Ministers of the Crown .have been remarkably silent in regard to these gross infringements of the right of free speech. There was a time when it occurred to no one to suspect that once a party came into power the human rights of its rivals would be subject forthwith to roughshod

infringement. . | Recent political developments, both ini this country and abroad, have given cause i for concern as to the future of democracy, i As the Round Table states: democracy —government, that is, by the party successful at the polls, with sole regard for the interests of its own members and in defiance .of the rights of the defeated—is as real an evil as any other form of totalitarianism.” Any trend lowards totalitarianism, therefore, no matter if only in the feeblest form, should be resisted, by every section of the community. If the world has learnt anything in the past 10 years, it has learnt that anything can happen anywhere. It is only a short time ago that Mr. Fraser, as the leader of the New Zealand delegation to the United Nations Assembly, delivered an oration io world statesmen on the subject of freedom. Last week in the country of which he is Prime Minister, the very freedom for which he so eloquently pleaded has been denied to men who wished to state their views on how the affairs of this Dominion should be conducted. It is worth remembering in this connection that it is on. the votes of the persons who refused the right of free speech that the Prime Minister may yet have to rely for the retention of power.

This week Mr. Fraser is to return to the land of his adoption, in time, Mr. Nash hopes, to speak io an audience largely composed of the same elements that denied a democratic right to an opposing party. The Prime Minister has pleaded eloquently before the bar of world opinion for the right of liberty for all: it will be interesting to note what he proposes to do to give effect to his views in his own country.