IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIX, Issue 66, 5 March 1929, Page 9

IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE

NON-PARTY POLITICS

NINETEEN TWENTY-EIGHT COM MITTEE.

There still are a few people asking, “What is the Nineteen Twenty-Eight Committee?” The majority of them seek the information they profess to require through the columns of the newspapers. Having done this they proceed to answer their own question with grotesque irrelevancy and crude humour. They would have the publice believe that the Nineteen Twenty Eight Committee was formed and organised for the purpose of exploiting every section of the community that happened to be outside its fold. As much as this was said of it in the House of Representatives last year under the cover of parliamentary privilege; but it is to the credit of the committee’s assailant that when he discovered his error he apologised and withdrew his hasty words. Since then the committee has continued to make rapid progress in the understanding of the public. The meeting of its supporters held in Wellington at the beginning of last month largely accelerated this progress and a similar meeting held in Christchurch a fortnight Inter emphasised the growing efficacy und popularity of the organisation. At the Wellington meeting a full statement of the committee’s formation, policy and activities was submitted to those present and subsequently widely distributed for general perusal; while at the Christchurch meeting representatives of the Press were present by invitation and given every opp<>, nity to make themselves acquainted with the character and purpose of the movement. TEST OF EXPERIENCE. The fact that the Ninteen TwentyEight Committee has won the confidence and approval of observant and independent authorities is perhaps the best testimony to the value of the work it is doing. The late Prime Minister, the Right Hon J. G. Coates, very cordially welcomed the formation of the committee, took the members of the executive fully into his confidence and placed a large amount of useful information at their disposal. The present Prime Minister, the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Ward, extended a ready audience to' the large deputation from the committee that waited upon him last month, expressed general approval of the aims of the committee and asked that particulars of its various activities be regularly supplied to him. Referring to State interference with private enterprise, Sir Joseph said that he hoped, with the assistance of his colleagues, the memberb of all section of Parliament, and the fair-minded public, to reach a solution of the problem in the near future. He would be pleased, he said, in concluding his remarks, to have any further information the committee could supply and its assistance in removing the problem as far as possible from the disrupting influences of party politics. From these statements and from others to the same eflcct that have been made by both Mr Coates and Sir Joseph Ward, and by their respective followers in the House of Representatives, it is obvious that the committee’s abstinence from party politics is accepted and appreciated by Parliament. DELIVERING THE GOODS. At the beginning of the second year of its achievements the committee hopes to be permitted to make these more or less personal allusions to the success that has attended its efforts without appropriating too much credit to itself. The newspapers, speaking generally, have not only opened their pages generously to the appeals of the executive; they also, in many cases, have supplemented these appeals by comments of their own which have very materially assisted in the campaign. Referring to the crowded meeting in Christchurch, which already has been mentioned, the local papers paid high tribute to the work of the committee. “Everyone who realises the evils of encroachment upon the rights of private enterprise and upon public liberties ” said one of the morning papers, “will be glad to know that the Nineteen Twenty-Eight Committee is resolved to go on with its agitation again bureaucratic ideas in Government. It is a pitay that those who are organising the committee’s activities did not begin to act ten years ago.” “Few movements among New Zealand business men in recent times,” said one of the evening papers, “have gathered in so short a period momentum to equal that of the organisation known as the ‘Nineteen Twenty-Eight Committee,’ set up less than a year ago to 00011181 the serious increase of State interference with legitimate private business. ..... It is evident from the time and energy leading business men have put into spade work that the operations of the committee are going to have a farreaching effect on the economic and through that the social life of the country.”

And so on and so on. An observant Press and an awakened people are alive to the needs of the hour.