THE PATRIOT’S CREED.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVI, Issue 24, 28 December 1925, Page 6

THE PATRIOT’S CREED.

The dominant note in both the New Zealand and Australian Federal Elections, so far as the Government parties were concerned, was tliat of patriotism and love of Empire, as opposed to the naiTow class consciousness of their Labour opponents. In the Commonwealth. Mr Stanley Bruce enunciated that which he termed the “Australian Patriot’s Creed”—a creed that, with a little paraphrasing, might well stand as a creed for New Zealanders also. Substituting Mr Coates for Mr Bruce and New Zealand for Australia, we would have the former enunciating the eight points of the New Zealander’s “Patriot’s Creed” as follows: “(1) I believe in New Zealand’s future as a great self-governing Dominion of the Biitisli Empire; (2) 1 believe in the policj r of a White New Zealand and the preservation of our racial purity; (3) I believe in the rapid and progressive populating of New Zealand by men and women of the British race in accordance with the absorption power of the nation; (4) I believe in Constitutional Government and democratic institutions, and the maintenance of law and order; (5) I believe in the adequate defence of New Zealand; (ti) I believe in the standards of living we have established for our people, and desire to see progressively advanced; (7) I believe in industrial peace, and the safeguarding of the rights and privileges of our workers by the peaceful settlement of industrial disputes within the law; (8) I believe in sane finance, orderly development, and progressive legislation for the advancement of the social and economic conditions of our people.” In effect, the points thus enumerated were all covered in Mr Coates’s election addresses, and had the backing of practically every Reform candidate. In them are to be found the essentials of that patriotism which can alone make the nation great. They are char--acteristically British in character, and it would bo well if they were accepted, not merely by the majority, as we believe they are, but by the people of New Zealand as a whole. It is about time there was a more general recognition of the hollow nature of the cry that the Government of this country is conducted on class lines. Those who raise that cry are the very people who, in the name of democracy instil class hatreds and suspicions of all people but themselves. They teach that loyalty is due only to the particular class which they aspire to lead; and they consider that the others need not be considered. And while, of recent months, they have been gracious enough to open the ranks of the workers to those who have to earn their living as the employees of others, the fact remains that the militant unions—the manual workers, and more particularly the miners, the seamen, the transport workers and the watersiders control their policy, and have the biggest say in their doings. We are too small a community to allcnv ourselves to be split up by class or sectional interests, each fighting for its own head and ignoring the good of the remainder. The fatuous Country Party, brought into being purely and simply to pnt the interests of the primary producers first and foremost in the legislation of this Dominion, did not appeal to the electors. They only had the sorry satisfaction of polling considerably less than one per cept. of the total effective votes ca'st at the recent general election. It would be all to the good of the nation if other class parties, either existing or that might be called into being, received a similarly crushing blow when the electors are again appealed to. That, however, would be too much to expect. Mr Coates’s idea of maintaining "quality of opportunity and gov

erning in the interests of- the whole community is the only time policy that will keep this country happy, contented and prosperous.