PARTY SYSTEM

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 10 April 1934, Page 6

PARTY SYSTEM

CONDEMNED BY MR B. SHAW CIVIC RECEPTION AT CHRISTCHURCH (By Telegraph—Press Association) CHUTSTOHUI’H, 9th April. In the course of further remarks at the civic reception this afternoon Mr Berlinnl Shaw said: “I never voted on any question exee]>t on the merits of the ease." Air Shaw -stopped speaking and faced his silent audience. “I can feel in that silence.” he said, “your incredulity. No Member of Parliament can make that statement. No Member of Parliament on any single .occasion lias been able to vote according to his convictions on a question before the House. The question may be one of education, it may be one of foreign politics, or one of any number of innumerable questions, but when the division is taken he votes not on the question but on whether or not hfk party is to remain in power, or whether lie is to face an election in the next fortnight. Under these circumstances, as far as Parliament is concerned the country does not get governed at all by Parliament. It gets governed very effectually by the gentlemen who are outside Parliament and have no responsibility —financial gentlemen and industrial gentlemen.” Mr Shaw referred to the fact that the people accused him of wanting a dictator. “What,” he asked, “do you elect men to govern you for? How can any Government govern without dictating? If government goes on under your present parliamentary system instead of under your municipal system, it cannot govern because it does not dictate. You have no dictatorship of Parliament but a dictatorship of financiers and industrialists outside Parliament.”

After pointing out this could never lead to the right system, Mr Shaw .said that the real dictators did not argue with those who sought reforms. “What do they do?” he said. “They say': ‘That man is an enemy of liberty. That man wants to put an end to democracy.’ I do not want to make slaves of you,” said Air Shaw. “I want to rescue you from being slaves.” The majority of the people he had met, he said, had been slaves. “In this country,” he proceeded, “'you call vourself free and you are politely called free, and I dare say you have the sensation of being free, on Sundays perhaps.” Dr Thacker: We have to do what we are told on Sundays. Mr Shaw: Yes, but you are not told anything on Sundays. On other days you are getting told the whole time, and you have to do what you are told, and the people who tell you what you have to do are not elected or. responsible persons. They are your absolute masters. Take the cas ( . of the free and independent farmer. I have met men of that description. It was a glorious tiling to think that they were on land ghat belonged to them, and they were working, say, sixteen hours a day to .pay the interest on their mortgage. I did not like to tell these poor fellows that they were just slaves of the mortgage, or perhaps of an absentee.” “I will make an admission,” said Mr Shaw, “that New Zealand is a rather desirable place to live in. If I were beginning my life I am not sure that I would not start in New Zealand. and I would make things hot for you. You need not he alarmed. My career is practically over. I can onlv go and tell people what a nice place New Zealand would he to live in if only you were free and if only you would get rid of your Parliamentary svstem.”