PARTY GOVERNMENT

New Zealand Herald, Volume 79, Issue 24178, 21 January 1942, Page 4

PARTY GOVERNMENT

Sir,—With very much of what you? correspondent, Mr. J- Johnstone, says I am in complete agreement. His statement of the case deals with the matter under consideration from a somewhat theoretical standpoint; I am concerned at the moment with the extremely dangerous lengths to which this theory has been carried by the Labour Party It must be conceded that the party system implies a measure of control by the organisation over those persons whom such organisation succeeds in having elected fo Parliament, but that control is being carried too far when the organisation can claim that its powers over members are absolute and when it can require or compel them to vary, add to or even depart altogether from the policy which was presented to and approved or by the electors. That is precisely the claim which the Easter Conference, through its leader, has actually made • Mr. James Roberts has said that the conference sent certain members to Parliament and he added in effect that if those members were not obedient to its will, conference would soon find others who would be a bit more responsive. It may well be that members of a party are responsible to some extent to their party organisation; but they owe a greater duty to the country as a whole. Mr. Eraser, however, seems to put the matter the other way round, hecause he has declared that ht regards his obligations to the Easter Conference, and also those of his Cabinet, as being three times as significant as his obligations to the electors. Another Minister has said that he treats the Easter Conference as the Parliament of the Labour movement. Those words can mean only that in his view the authority of the conference over Labour members is complete and imperative. Finally, Mr. James Roberts declared at a conference meeting that they were not going to allow members of Parliament to carrv on as they liked, and headded: "We sent them to Parliament to do a job for us." The words "for us" are verv important. They show that Mr. Roberts had in mind those persons and those persons only for whom the conference claims to speak. Abraham Lincoln spoke of "government of the people by the people"; but he added the extra words "for the people." The Easter Conference seems to hold the view that democratic government can be defined as "government of the whole, of the people by the servants of on» section for the special benefit of the members of that section." R M. A lot.