DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22366, 13 September 1934, Page 10

DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT

TO THE EDITOR

Sir, —Dr D. G. M'Millan, of Kurow, must be judged guilty of discourtesy, if not, indeed, something more reprehensible. I have respectfully asked him in three separate letters where to find the first three sentences he quoted from Edmund Burke's writings or speeches in his letter dated “ Kurow August 21. He cannot, or will not, tell your readers where those three sentences are tp be found. Why? ... If Dr M'Millan forsakes his chosen profession in favour of politics it will be interesting to watch his development. 1 doubt, however, if I would have written a line about his views had he not proclaimed his adherence to the principles of Burke and quoted him approvingly. Here, methought, is a Labour man holding poiltical beliefs based on fundamentals —and courageous enough to put them on paper. But so soon as I mentioned the machine politics of the Labour 1 arty the worthy medico took fright. 1 would,” he says, in reference to my observations, “ attract his attention to the fact that the Labour Party is the only democratically-controlled political organisation in New Zealand to-day. Its policy ie framed by the delegates from all the branches, who meet in conference every year . .” Which in practice means that Dr M'Millan must support any policy which the Labour delegates decide upon. It means also that if Dr M Millan were a Labour member of Parliament, pledged to his electors to support some definite principle of which the Labour delegates disapproved, he would have to break his pledge to his constituents. . If the Labour delegates changed their minds on any definite principle during the term of Parliament, Dr M'Millan would have to change his mind in unison with the Labour delegates or break his Labour pledge. The Labour delegates may represent a few dozen or a few hundred of the electors in the electorate which Di M'Millan might represent, but they would exercise more power over Dr M MiUan s opinions than all the other electors in the electorate which the doctor might represent. Dr M'Millan calls that democracy. I call that machine politics. And Dr M'Millan has the audacity to paraphrase Burke in support of such a system. Burke asked:''. . - what sort of reason is that, in which the determination precedes the discussion; in which one set of men deliberate and another decide; and where those who form the conclusion are perhaps 300 miles distant from those who hear the argumente? }i Dr M’Millan knows that Burke’s principle of manly political independence cannot in any sense be harmonised with the machine politics of the Labour Party. Yet Dr M'Millan quoted Burke approvingly. , ~ I am anxious that Dr M'Millan should not lose sight of “the democratic ideals of Burke” (the words are the doctors own), so that I cannot close better than by quoting a few more of Burke’s weighty words: —

Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as ail“agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but Parliament ig a deliberate assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. . . •” 1 am, etc., Plain Bill. Dunedin, September 11.