REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20842, 8 April 1931, Page 12

REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT.

Sir, —A good deal lias been said and written of late about the failure of our representative Government. But are wo governed by the men we elect ? Or has the abuse of the party system allowed the actual governing to pass into other bonds ? Primarily, ,no doubt, the fault, lies with the elector through ignorance or indifference brought about by faulty education. Every elector should be taught to realise that nothing is done for nothing ami that everything that is promised by a candidate has to be paid for, and that the man who has to pay is tba elector himself. The outstanding feature of representative government is an elected head of every Government department, in the shape of a Minister of the Crown responsible to the electors for th'o administration of his department. 13ut wo find Ministers not daring to move a hand or say a word, except with the approval of their departmental heads. .As a result of this excellent legislation is nullified by bad administration with.no possible hope of redress. If the British' ideal of representative government is to succeed it is absolutely necessary that we elect men who will placo country before all else. The class of man we require to- represent us, and the only one that can do so successfully, is the ona who would under no circumstance submit himself for the approval of any party caucus, nor follow blindly any party leader, and certainly not one' who it making politics a profession. A. B. Fiers.