POLITICS AND PARTIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19792, 12 November 1927, Page 13

POLITICS AND PARTIES.

THE NATIONAL UNITEDS.

REFLECTIONS OF BROWN.

AVERAGE MAN'S ATTITUDE

Auckland remains calm in spite of the announcement that the National Party has thrown in its lot with the United New Zealand Political Organisation. Among the calmest is Brown, who in his deliberate manner has been wondering how the new organisation became a "united" one before the Liberals, under their "National" title, espoused it. Brown has never been sufficiently active in politics to know much about the art of manufacturing platforms, creating "opinion," and whipping in the pack, to carrying his comprehension to the higher; plane of constructing a new political party. He is one of the many—a section of the community far more numerous than political leaders and organisers admit—who accept the best of what offers without imagining for a moment that there is any short-cut to better government. They refuse to believe that any party has any magic, that it can do more than try to perform what, it says would be good for the country. Indeed, it knows that every election is more or less hot air, which is not the kind of thing to improve the standard of thinking. The Unsatisfactory Browns.

Brown has always felt a great deal of resentment against the people he supports upon general principles because of the amount of stuff he calls "flapdoodle" that is served up. But through it all he holds firmly t-o what he believes to be an honesty of purpose which has its roots in the spirit of the nation, even though he is not always satisfied with the motives of some of his company. As a matter of fact, there are a good many Browns in all political parties. They would like to see their leaders cut ont the "flam," but they know that a fairly large section is not ready for politics on a higher plane and hence they must accept a situation which is alterable only by wider knowledge and higher civilisation. From Precedent to Precedent.

Thus Brown, who is a modern Conservative, with ideas that would have been regarded as frightfully radical less than a century ago, views the so-called new party simply as an eddy in the stream he calls his own. Pausing for a moment to consider the radicalism of Browft it would be instructive if more people read the debates that took place in the House of Commons over Wakefield's schemes for the settlement of New Zealand. They would find one noble lord, whose descendants have served the Empire in a wonderful way, stating how necessary it would be to create a landed class in New Zealand as a means of counteracting democracy, which he regarded as a most pernicious thing. A lot of words have flowed through the statutes since then and poor old Brown, whose ideas would have made him a dangerous adventurer in Socialism in the forties, is now deemed to be as conservatively stubborn as the elephant that "propped" in the pass because he wanted to talk to sick Mulvaney. M&kor o! Magic.

However, as to this United New Zealand Political Organisation, with * which is incorporated the National and former Liberal Party, Brown and his kind, who support, rather than assist, the Reform Party, are unable to see anything more impressive than the spectacle provided by the conjuror who causes a marble to disappear and appear under another thimble. A resident of Auckland, where file United (etc.) Organisation had its birth, Brown may have some reason for suspecting that the original tinder received a very small initial spark, but that under the gentle blowing of accomplished lighters of political fires it burst into what might be regarded as a fair little blaze in Wellington. Obviotisly more than the tinder is now alight, but perhaps the National "kindling" was ready at hand. Who knows, and what does it matter in any case? The fact is that a group at one with the Reform Government in principle, and • therefore as hostile to Labour and its principles, is so eager for office and so convinced that it possesses heavensent genius in statesmanship* that it is preparing to act in such a way that at its worst it might bring about a political stalemate and, at its best, might give office to Labour, which is as eager for adventure as Don Quixote. Leaves Them Cold.

After his usual habit, Brown has been making inquiries among the chaps with whom he works and eats and plays, but the United rocket that was sent up in Wellington very soon after Guy Fawkes Day is of less moment to them than Mr. Sidey's summer and the behaviour of the City Council over the buses. Brown has rather bored these people with his "blether" about new parties. "Who the dickens cares V said one man. "What I want to know is how to ride to work."

Brown tried one of those gentlemen whose greatest joy in life in in being consulted to-day about what the people will think to-morrow—there are lots of them about—and that gentleman very truthfully replied that he did not know anything about it. Brown's final reflection over the whole thing was that another phase of the party game left the average New Zealander cold. He votes on election day and hopes for the best and is singularly unresponsive to offers of salvation.