THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 1940 MR. LEE'S EXPULSION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23615, 27 March 1940, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 1940 MR. LEE'S EXPULSION

Mn. J. A. Lee may now constitute, as he says, a party, of one. His standing in the Labour movement was undeniable, however, and his expulsion from the party therefore raises wide political issues. The paramount consideration at this time must be the effect of any action on the conduct of the war. On this count the cleavage opened in the Labour Party, which is the Government. party, is most regrettable when the call should be to close the ranks. How deep the cleavage goes has yet to be finally determined. If it be shallow, centring about the dynamic personality of an individual, then the expulsion of Mr. Lee should remove a distracting influence and make for a firmer unity in the governing group. Most fortunately the division had nothing to do with war policy. On that primary issue Mr. Lee takes a stand as sturdy and sound as any of his former colleagues. Although he and the party may continue to disagree on political matters, is it too much to j suggest that they sink their diffcri ences in the common cause and that ! Sir. Lee's services be retained in the j war effort. His record in the Great | War, combined with platform gifts and a sincerity sometimes hidden under a habit of impish levity, should be of real use to the Government in making the volunteer system of recruiting successful, a system to which Mr. Lee is committed as well as the Government. Their acceptance of this suggestion would prove their magnanimity and their ability to place the national cause above any party quarrel. On the domestic side of'politics, it can be said that, without any ill will against Mr. Lee, the vast majority of people inside the Labour movement and outside it regard his expulsion with positive relief. He had a certain following in Labour circles, but it would seem that it was confined to the doctrinaire, the dogmatic and the fanatical, and that they, while occupying many representative posts, had gone far ahead of the mass and sense of the party. Their crazy notions about credit and currency, carrying the risk of ruinous inflation, and their apocalyptic passion to socialise everything, created an uneasy sense of insecurity, so long as they possessed a leader of some ability and dauntless courage. When the latter quality harnessed to a ready and biting pen betrayed its possessor into foolhardiness and a glaring indiscretion, Labour radicals lost their leader ahd the I people gained an assurance against j extreme courses. In these anxious j times such an assurance is valuable and some may endorse Mr. Lee's expulsion for that reason alone. Many within the Labour Party may still hold with his political views, but will be left impotent without his dynamism and elan. The "Thunder on the Left" seems destined to pass away harmlessly for lack of a storm centre. Arguing from the conference vote of 546 to 344, some may contend that Mr. Lee cannot be dismissed as lightly as is suggested. It should be noted, however, that while three out of eight voted against Mr. Lee's expulsion, the same proportion did not necessarily vote for Mr. Lee's views. Some may have considered that expulsion was too drastic a penalty and that the case was reasonably met by the terms previously made by the executive and accepted by Mr. Lee—censorship of writings, an apology, and a curb on certain activities. Others may have argued simply that expulsion was impolitic inexpedient. Still others might reflect that an unruly steed was safer within the party coj-ral than as a lone ranger, free to kick up his heels and follow his own will. His vote within the party cannot therefore be counted as over 38 per cent and the probability is that the Lee schism has been closed for some time at least.

The burden of the charge at the conference against Mr. Lee appears • to have been, not the challenge of J his political views, but a failure in loyalty to leader and party. Mr. Lee might reasonably retort that he was found guilty by the majority, not of disloyalty, but of nonconformity. He could make a good case to show that he had been more loyal to the party's principles and platform than many of his colleagues and the Government itself. Actually he was caught in a conflict loyalties and may claim that what he stood for were the higher loyalties, the principles and the word rather than the person and the practice. He m;rv reflect now that pure consistency is a barren mate and should not have forgotten, what his colleagues seem to realise, that "politics is the art of the possible." Meanwhile the case of Mr. Lee is revealing and may prove dismaying to many who cheiI ish the democratic ideal. It would seem that, under threat of expulsion, the Labour Party enforces on all its members a rigid conformity with its policy as laid down at the annual conference. Freedom of discussion is permitted there, for one week of the 52, and that free discussion takes place in camera. Apart from the gag thus placed on party members, such a closed system allows no scope for the education and formation of an intelligent public opinion. The party becomes supreme and the sole repository of political thought and wisdom. The system is as totalitarian as that of Fascism, Nazism or Communism and a denial in fact if not in theory of the basis of democracy. This revelation of the uniform and slavish conformity demanded by the Labour Party, as proved by' Mr. Lee's case, should not be lost on a people striving to be free.. I