POLITICAL ACTION

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 4 May 1934, Page 4

POLITICAL ACTION

.ATM OF N.Z. LEGION PARTICIPATION IN ELECTION. WELLINGTON, May 4. In an address to the Hutt Valley Division of the New Zealand Legion yesterday, Dr. Campbell Begg, the Dominion president, made ft clear that the Legion intended to take an active part in the next election. There was no intention of opposing certain valued members of the three present parties, but others would be nominated in such a way as to secure a majority in the House determined to carry out essential political and administrative reconstruction. The. Legion’s duty wag clear enough. There were individual men in the Labour Party, as Independents and in the other parties, who were of great value to the country through their presence in the House. It was, however, the plain duty of the Legion to .secure a niajoritv in Parliament who would abandon the hopeless attitude of laissezcaire* to outworn political institutions, and so readjust the machinery as to meet the new and much more exacting demands of government, while preserving intact- the substance of democracy. The Legion had to mould machinery which would take an active part in the coming election, and the function of this machine would be to assist the return of those members of the House on all sides whose power for service to the country had' l>een proved and at the same time the return of others who were prepared to carry out the full programme of political nnd economic reconstruction. It was possible their activities might not prove attractive to the existing party or- . gnnis.ations.