The Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. “Luceo Non Uro.” MONDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1936. Viscount Elibank And The Government

Southland Times, Issue 23024, 19 October 1936, Page 6

The Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. “Luceo Non Uro.” MONDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1936. Viscount Elibank And The Government

For the last two weeks New Zealand has been host to a group of distinguished visitors which includes some of the leaders of British industry. After spending some time in conference at Wellington they have been touring the country to study its life and conditions and talk with its people. Many of them are men of wide experience in what is the great industrial centre of the world; and naturally their observations on our own industrial progress must be both useful and enlightening. Are they to say what they think, or are they to be restricted to a handful of platitudes that will please everyone—the Labour Government included—and help no one? “I think,” said Mr Savage at the opening of the Empire Chambers of Commerce conference, we shall get realities from this congress.” At Dunedin on Thursday night, Viscount Elibank delivered a speech which contained some realistic criticism of the Industrial Efficiency Bill. He chose his words with the greatest care, and although he made his distrust of the Bill plain and reminded New Zealand of its dependence on Great Britain for markets, the most he asked was that the Government should hold up the Bill until Mr Nash had an opportunity of obtaining the opinions of the British Government and the City of London. Viscount Elibank s speech opened up an entirely new field of discussion on the Bill j which any less presumptuous Government would have welcomed. How was his suggestion received in Parliament? Mr Savage—one of the men whom Viscount Elibank had invited to express his opinions freely before the congress at any time and on any subject—said that the Viscount was out of order. The Minister of Industries and Commerce, Mr Sullivan, in a speech remarkable for its bad taste and plain discourtesy, told how he had gone to the trouble of sending a special car from Wellington to Auckland for Viscount Elibank’s use and how the Viscount had been enjoying the hospitality of the New Zealand Government. “I am surprised and disappointed,” said Mr Sullivan, “at the remarks of a visitor to our country who on his own admission has received at the hands of New Zealand every possible hospitality This gentleman is no sooner here than he presumes to interfere affecting our own internal economy.” It is the people of New Zealand who are host to Viscount Elibank, not Mr Savage and Mr Sullivan. And the members of the Government who claim to represent them cannot learn too soon that the people of New Zealand are not accustomed either to talk of their hospitality as though it is a debt to be repaid, or to offer hospitality as the price of silence. Much as Mr Sullivan may wish to stifle discussion of a thoroughly dangerous piece of legislation, he should remember that he is held in office ' by an electorate which is fairi minded enough to appreciate honest and temperate criticism, the more so when the critic is a man so eminently qualified by position and experience as Viscount Elibank.