EXAMINING THE CANDIDATES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20075, 12 October 1928, Page 16

EXAMINING THE CANDIDATES.

Sir, —A correspondent very appropriately suggests in Thursday's Herald that an Act should be passed requirinj candidates to pass an examination in gen eral intelligence. However, this would have no effect until the election of 1951. whereas electors may easily conduct their own examination of the candidates now. and pass judgment on tbo.se who fai!i Thus there is the candidate who says there are 40 men in New Zealand with incomes of £IOO.OOO a year or more, ignoring the fact that the 16, not 40. with that income are not individuals, but companies, each owned by hundreds or thousands of shareholders. Vet his vote, if elected, will count just as well as that of Mr Downie Stewart when it comes to deciding whether income tax should ho reduced. Then there is the candidate who told ns that New Zealand is the richest country in the world, the average wealth being £l6O a head. Nobody convicted him except the man who interjected that some were not worth sixpence, although that amount represents merely (ho national assets, railways, public, lands, etc., the total wealth per head being quite four times that amount. Yet his vote, if elected, counts just as well as that of the Minister of Public Works when it comes lo deciding how much we shall borrow, and add to the public debt, which already amounts to about £l6O per head Then there is the mem ber who rebuked the Tourist Department for not paying sufficient attention to the South Island. Citing Switzerland as attracting thousands of visitors, he said they had one glacier in the South Island which was as large as Switzerland. So it is, if one merely glances at the figures, but as the glacier is given in acres and Switzerland in square miles, the latter is really 640 times the area of the famous Tasman Glacier. And yet his undisputed statement swayed the policy as >.o whether the department should continue to booin the world-renowned Rotorua and Wairakei, the National Park, and Mount Egmont, one o? the most famous cones in the world. Then there is the candidate who condemns tho railway? ns obsolete, and with a wave of the hand disposes of our fifty millions of national assets. And his vote in Parliament would help to decide the railway policy. It is quite time candidates passed an examination, and electors can easily conduct it themselves, instead of waiting for an Act of Parliament. Economist.