The Matamata Record (Published Monday and Thursday) FRIDAY, JANUARY 3, 1936. 1935-1936

Matamata Record, Volume XIX, Issue 1692, 3 January 1936, Page 4

The Matamata Record (Published Monday and Thursday) FRIDAY, JANUARY 3, 1936. 1935-1936

THE past year, in all probability, will mark the commencement of an epoch-making chapter in the history of the Dominion. In. its closing weeks a most momentous election was held, in which the pendulum of public opinion swung with great force and certitude rm a completely opposite direction to/that pertaining before. The result .'of the election transcended any other event of the year, for a policy, pronounced by the Government and its advisers as necessary for the rehabilitation of the populace, was wholeheartedly rejected in favour of a new one involving an experiment such as no country in the world has yet subscribed to in such a manner. It is a policy comparable* in its magnitude and farreaching implications to any great reform in British history. Its working out will be followed with intense interest the world over, and for the time being New Zealand will be the cynosure of all eyes.

The commencement of 1935 was an era of wistfulness in that the thinking populace, after years of hard work and intense sacrifice, failed to discern that comer which politicians talked so much about. Nor was it that these thinkers were blind or looked through glasses darkly; in point of fact, never had a people borne so much or toiled so, manfully to produce those material things the production of which it was held would set things right. Actually there was truth in the cynicism that the more the nation produced the poorer it became, for, though exports increased by millions of pounds sterling, the great mass of the people was still short of very much that made life worth living.' A year ago in this annual survey of economic affairs we wrote:

“ There is a call for leadership the world over leaders with courage to deal with fundamentals which alone can solve the problems of today. As the Hon. Downie Stewart has pointed out, Democracy has its faults but it is preferable to a system .under which the liberty of the individual is almost eliminated. . . .

Never in the •history of the Dominion has the people’s regard for Parliament been at such a low ebb. The reiteration of comers turned, the Micawber-lilce lack of policy and the utter lack of idealism have not induced a high regard for Government. . . . Voluntary conversion of loans under penalty of taxation; extension of tenure of office without a mandate; deliberate disregard of prom- • ises made at Ottawa ; the AuditorGeneral’s sweeping condemnation of the manipulation of Public Accounts as ‘ misleading and inaccurate ’; the scandals in the administration of certain Government departments; the flouting of a universal demand for a monetary inquiry; the methods involved in the final passage of the Reserve Bank Bill; and the open abuse and wasteful expenditure of unemployment funds are factors which people are glad to pass oyer.” In this summary we judged accurately, some ten months before the verdict, the obvious sentence which a people must pass on the sponsors of such a policy if the people remained true to the British principles of justice and individual freedom. The sentence passed was almost as severe as it was possible for such a judge and jury to inflict. But there is this to be said for those found guilty: it was not so much their sincerity which was at fault, as their lack of appreciation of that fundamental idealism without which neither a people nor an individual can become great. They endeavoured to preserve the system by forcing man to fit himself to that system, but at tremendous cost; they overlooked the fact that their very forefathers who founded the new nation had left the Old Country and braved unknown perils rather than submit to that very same policy, even if in those days it was

less defined; and they, scorned a sug-. gestion that an attempt might be made to lit the system to man. And the outcome! Events are still too near to hazard an estimate. Suffice it to say that the job the new Government has sworn to tackle is comparable to any great reform in British history, for the all-important plank is that which proposes to make finance the hand-maiden of industry instead of its master, and without attention to which ike Government cannot implement its detailed policy. During the next few weeks this great effort will be begun. In theory its practice will create a new heaven on earth, and New Zealand will be the first country to attempt to create this new heaven on a grand scale. There should be no cause for fear, for in various minor forms the theory has already been successfully proved. Without experiment a nation must perish and to-day in New Zealand idealism rules. Cynics may scoff, but history proves that idealism alone can solve a nation’s troubles. All else is dependent on the new Government’s effort in this direction. We see no reason why this effort should fail and all indications point to a new era, the like of which this Dominion has not previously experienced. New Zealand’s progress in 1936 will be watched with interest the entire world over. It should be a year of exceptional progress in all spheres of life.