NEW ZEALAND LEGION

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIV, Issue 119, 4 May 1934, Page 9

NEW ZEALAND LEGION

Part in Next Election INDICATED BY LEADER (By Telegraph—Special to “Tribune.”) WELLINGTON, May 3. In an address to the Hutt Valley Division of the New Zealand Legion, to-night, Dr. Campbell Begg, the Dominion president, made it 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. Dr. Campbell Begg also referred to the complete i evolution in Great Britain which had replaced the policy of laissez-taire by economic planning. He said that the policy to increase the local production of Ipod-stuffs in England was based on the necessity of national security and would uot be abandoned. There would no doubt be a sigh ot relief to thjnk that in New Zealand we bad the courage to face the difficult road of economic planning to replace the spasmodic and irritating “interference” of the past. We had now to face the fact that we had no machinery of government capable of carrying out any continuous policy. Unless that machinery was amended the goal of the least possible interference with individual activity compatible with the interests of the country and other individuals, could uot be carried out. Laissez-faire in politics was unfortunately still the policy of all parties in the field, and until that was altered it was (♦poss.ble for New Zealand to launch out on a bold plan of Reconstruction. The Legion's proposals for an economic council built up from the organised economic life of the community itself, and the co-ordination of local body activities by shires, were the only constructive programme that had been brought forward. UNITY GOVERNMENT ESSENTIAL. The details were difficult but by no means insoluble, and the evils of party government could be controlled in no other way. The urgent need at the present time was a unity government which must include the Labour side ol the House, with the clear intention to take a bold line of action. The vital questions of political and administrative changes to meet the new economic situation could no longer be shelved without grave danger to the country. Dr, Begg said that he had carefully analysed the Labour Party’s proposals, and he could see no recognition of this fact in them. It was apparently the intention that, if in power, the party should handle such matters as the national control of currency and traue with no other machinery than that of the government caucus as at present. The present Government and the parties composing it adopted a similar attitude. The Legion’s duty was 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 majority in parliament who would abandon the hopeless attitude of lajssez-faire 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 a 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 been proved and at the same time the return of others who were prepared to carry out the full programme pf political and economic reconstruction. It was possible their activities might not prove attractive to the existing party organisations. VOTE-SPLITTING BOGEY. The cry of vote-splitting had been raised by both parties, and of the two the Labour Party might have more grounds for such complaint than the Coalition. An analysis of the voting in the different electorates showed undubitably that there was a large group of progressively minded people who, in the absence of a third candidate of their own type of thought, vote for Labour or do not vote at all. “The system of preferential voting advocated by the Legion is simple and effective,” he said. “The time has past, talk of “mushroom growths” notwithstanding, when any of the existing parties, whether they be Reform, Labour or United, may imagine that they have bought out the monopoly of electoral rights, “Preferential voting of a scientific typo will break up the tyranny of the party nominations, whereas the present system of first-past-the-post beloved of the parties results in defeating the will of the electors.” He believed that under the NansenHogben system this form of voting could be made a true and simple test of the electors’ wishes and any party that tries to defeat this aim by nominating dummies or otherwise would burn their fingers badly. He said frankly that the country was rotten ripe for a group which would lead boldly to political and economic reconstruction with full knowledge of the world trends to which we must conform in these days of rapid change. New Zealand has to slough off the shibboleths qf insularism and progresskilling conservatism, as well as the fear of sectional interests which had been the curse of our political life. The Legion’s plans not only provided high ideals in national life but practical proposals lor their fulfilment. Organising and educational activities had been our role up till now. We must in future have action for our watchword. Unity in national spirit anil unity m government was the aim. and he believed that the whole country would respond and get behind them in their effort.