CO-OPERATION IN QUESTION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23504, 15 November 1939, Page 10

CO-OPERATION IN QUESTION

New Zealand's war effort will not be prospered by barren political arguments concerning the responsibility for the failqre of all parties to work together. At the same time the Leader of the Opposition would have been more than human if he had not taken up Mr. Nash's charges of lack of co-operation. Mr. Hamilton's reply as published this morning might have been more moderately expressed, but it does completely refute Mr. Nash's accusations. The Minister would have been on much stronger ground if, instead of making general charges, he could have stated any particular case or cases in which the Opposition had refused to co-operate when asked to do so. Mr. Hamilton's offer to help was publicly announced and also placed before the Government in writing. Has the Government attempted to use this freely volunteered reinforcement of the national effort in any way and found co-operation lacking? Mr. Nash did not quote an instance, probably because he could not. It is impertinent, not to say unfair, to condemn people for not helping while steadily ignoring their offers of help. Actually the responsibility for the failure of the full measure of co-operation that is essential and that the people would wish to see must rest on the Government. Its business is to get things done and its privilege to call on all sections of the community to join up for national service. It should also try to discharge its task in a way that will enlist as wide and willing support as possible. But the Government has neither issued a call to practical service nor sought to use methods that would command general approval and ready co-operation. It has preferred to go its own way —a party, political way —and to dictate its own ideas instead of calling upon the common experience and the public spirit. The burden of Mr. Nash's complaint is that the Opposition and other sections of the people have not been meek enough to follow blindly his arbitrary and doctrinaire leading. He should remind himself that co-operating means working together —not working to the orders of some bureaucratic all-highest.