THE N.Z. LEGION.

Southland Times, Issue 22010, 9 May 1933, Page 3

THE N.Z. LEGION.

To the Editor.

Sir.—l have to thank Mr Macalister for his reply to my letter of Saturday morning. He. assures your readers that the story of the initial meeting of the Legion is palpably fictitious. My facts came from a reliable source, in fact the same “contemporary of yours” mentioned in his reply. I refer to the New Zealand Worker” from which your correspondent quoted paragraphs from an article “The inside story of the N.Z. Legion” by “Scalpel.” Unfortunately he did not quote the whole of the article so I do not think I am out of order if I refer to several paragraphs further down the page and written by this “special correspondent in Wellington.” “It’s my firm conviction that Dr Begg is in sincere. . . He is the sole driving force of the League—at present. But he, himself, does not know where the movement will end up. He does not disguise his anxiety as to its trend, but he is determined not to let it get out of hand if he can help it. He realizes the dungeis which beset it. He has already fended off certain organizations which courted the Legion’s support. I may add he won’t entertain the Douglas Credit scheme for a moment. He is, shall I say, obsessed with a desire to “clean up” everything rotten in connection with Parliamentary and local body Government —he has a sort of inspiration to create a new patriotic national spirit throughout the land. “Fascism,” “Hitlerism” you will exclaim. Yes and no. The doctor himself is dead against anything like a class of sectional movement and force of any kind. He nurtures the not’on that Capital and Labour will consent to pull together in the operation of his plan—a regular lion lying down with the lamb sort of thing. Preposterous, obviously, but there you are. The doctor is an infant in political comprehension. He s a pure idealist and bound to do some tilting at windmills. “The doctor himself is bent .on accepting for executive positions only those who are genuinely unselfish—those stripped of all motive for personal. The welfare of the whole people is his sole objective. Mussolini told them that, "while scores of thousands in Italy are still existing in the greatest miseiy. Nevertheless, the idealistic Doctor has already sifted out a number of individuals who have “muscled in on him. And so great is his name in the Legion that what he says goes. He has sensed another menace, and that is the danger of “white anting” his organization. With an uncanny predilection for spotting these wouldbe wreckers the doctor has already indicated to some of these folk wheie they get off. “Dr Begg has certainly started something, and at times, I venture to say he views the result almost with consternation. His avowed lofty ideals are not shared by the majority of those who are gathered closely around him. But the pretence of supporting his ideals will .be effectively maintained for self-interest so long as the Legion bears promise of helping those folk to gain their ends. The Doctor believes that the Legion can be made so powerful by the time an election is held that no candidate whatever will risk going.to the hustlings withouf first signing the Legion’s pledge to abolish the Parliamentary Party system. No vote splitting among the anti-labour forces. We shall see.” With the extracts quoted by your correspondent, Mr Macalister, and those I have included above from the same article I think we have the article in its entirety—l am etc., “BRER RABBIT.” (The extracts quoted were not taken from the N.Z. Worker by Mr Macalister. —Ed. S.T.]