NEW ZEALAND LEGION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21562, 5 August 1933, Page 11

NEW ZEALAND LEGION

"CONSTRUCTIVE IDEAS " CABINET MINISTER'S POSITION In an address in Wellington the president of the ]New Zealand Legion, Dr. R. Campbell Begg, said the legion's purpose was to mobilise thought, to encourage all classes of people to study matters of political, social and economic science, to be a clearing-house for the constructive ideas of tho individual, and to submit such ideas for discussion in hundreds of groups throughout, tho country. They wanted to develop independence, fearlessness, and moral courage, and substitute those qualities for captious criticism and other ineffective processes. The tangible aim of the Legion was to secure forms of Government worthy of a freo people, to ensure conditions that would enable the most capable of its citizens to give their services to the State in central or local government and administration without any restriction to tho exorcise of their intellect, their judgment, and their conscience. ■. The speaker expressed tho view that it was entirely wrong for a Minister of tho Crown to represent a constituency. It was not fair to ask a man who was giving his whole time to national affairs to suffer the handicap of being tied to a constituency tvhich was making certain demands on him. , Thero was no doubt that largess in tho shape of public works and so on had been distributed in tho past in order to please certain electorates; in fact, the principle had been condoned by a certain statesman. In his view, no Minister of the Crown should be exposed to such a temptation. Dr. Begg also criticised the system under which Cabinet Ministers were expected to support tho policy df their Government whether they beheved in it or not. Their only alternative was to resign from the Cabinet, and they had an instance not long ago where a statesman who had given valuable service to tho country had had' to leavo tho Government because ho disagreed with his colleagues on an important policy measure. With an elective Executive thero could bo no such happening. Under the present party system the Prime Minister was virtually a dictator, as ho had in his hands the distribution of all the so-called sweets of office. They all knew that members who were opposed to certain measures voted for them because they were tied to a party. Dr. Begg appealed to members of the Legiou to see to it that the movement which they had started did not collapse. Unless they got thousands of men and women who were prepared to fight tho business out, in spite of all that might bo said of them and dono to them, the Legion would fail and would deserve to fail.