The Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING “LUCEO NON URO” SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1938. Political Melodrama At Nightcaps

Southland Times, Issue 23438, 19 February 1938, Page 6

The Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING “LUCEO NON URO” SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1938. Political Melodrama At Nightcaps

The Minister of Mines (the Hon. P. C. Webb) has shown on more than one occasion that he has a firm grasp on the practical affairs of his department. During his visit to Invercargill this week he spoke at some length on the conservation of coal supplies and the search for oil in New Zealand, and in both cases showed evidence of judgment and insight. At Nightcaps on Thursday evening, however, he spoke in different vein. He was no longer the administrator, careful of facts, but a politician palpably appealing to prejudice. ' It is possible, of course, that Mr Webb relied on the catchwords and phrases that have become a kind of literary currency within his party simply because, like other men with specialized knowledge in a single department, he is unequal to the task of political generalization, and finds its easier to use the time-worn cliches that never fail to arouse an unreflecting audience. Yet there can be few members of the Labour Government who would descend with such an easy effrontery to the cheap rhetoric that Mr Webb thought fit to use at Nightcaps. To speak of New Zealand at any period of its history as an “industrial hell” is even more absurd than to speak of it at the present time as a “comparative paradise.” But that was merely in keeping with a speech which constantly aimed at a sentimental appeal, and in which Mr Webb descended frequently to the level of old-time melodrama. He was fully entitled to claim that the Government has been responsible for an all-round increase in pensions; but it was beside the point to ask, presumably in the accents of pathos, if it is a “crime ... to have made provision for invalids, so giving peace and security to suffering people?” No one has suggested that attention to social services is a “crime”; it is only fair to past Governments to point out that New Zealand’s record in this direction has always compared more than favourably with those of other countries. But Mr Webb gives little attention to other countries, except to make them a basis for misleading comparisons. “We believe we are the pilot light to a higher civilization,” he said, “and we know that our legislation is an inspiration to the democracy of the world .... Without egotism, I can say that no Government, past or- present, in any part of the world, has accomplished anything like what we have accomplished in God’s own country.” Mr Webb may have declaimed these extraordinary words without egotism; but if he really believed what he was saying he has left himself open to a charge of ignorance unbecoming in a Cabinet Minister. He does not seem to know, for instance, that Australia—governed by ’what Mr Webb would probably term a reactionary party—has developed a health insurance scheme to a state of completeness as yet unknown in New Zealand, and that Australia—in spite of a heavy armaments programme —has been able to make prosperity compatible with lower taxation, and at the same time to reduce unemployment to pre-depression levels. Apparently he is unaware of what has been done in the Scandinavian countries . to provide ideal conditions and homes for the workers, or of the far-sighted programme drawn up by the Swedish Government—in a time of unprecedented prosperity —to stimulate industry and prevent unemployment in a future slump, a plan described by an American writer as “perhaps the most comprehensive attempt to prevent depression yet to be devised in a democratic country.” And in announcing the achievements of our own small islands to an unresponsive world he makes no mention of the social services which have been initiated and developed by the conservative Government of Great Britain. Perhaps it is not surprising that in a speech tuned to such a pitch the Minister of Mines should speak of the Press of New Zealand in the terms of a violent and unreflecting critidsm. In saying that the Press “is controlled by wealthy interests who think that the only way to prosperity is over the starved bodies of men, women and children” Mi Webb was deliberately yielding to a kind of political hysteria Mr Webb is himself an empbyer: he should know better thar, most men that the direction of capital can be synonymous witi fair dealing, and that it is grossly unfair to place the newspapers—or any other group of employers—in a single category, and label them to the satisfaction of the malicious and uninformed members of society. “The Pres of this country is not free,” slid Mi’ Webb, “it will strangle the Labour Government if it can.” Nothing in this country can “stiangle” the Labour, or any otter, Government unless it has cortrol of the essential services of communication. The Press is fres just as long as

its columns remain open to the expression of every kind of opinion that remains within the bounds of decency and respects the laws against libel. If the present Government had its way the columns of our newspapers would be closed to the anonymous correspondent, and political comment would receive an increasing coercive pressure. In the coining months, while political feeling responds to the stimulus of an approaching general election, the case for Labour and the case against it will be stated in newspaper columns throughout the country. If the Government is to be “strangled”, it will be because the people of New Zealand are not yet so submerged beneath the propaganda that flows increasingly from broadcasting stations that they are unable to think for themsel'ves or to discern the solid core of fact within the sound of too much protesting that comes from itinerant members of Parliament. The present Government would like to control the Press. And what that means should now be sufficiently obvious to those who read the cable messages. We reproduce this morning a chart of the newspaper world which shows in black and white the steady movement towards what may be a new age of darkness in the history of mankind. The shaded portions of the map represent the areas where all the agencies of public communication are controlled by governments. A merely superficial glance at this map will show that the countries which have been deprived of a free Press are those countries which, in the minds of democratic peoples, have come to be associated with tyranny and terror. Our newspapers may have their faults, like all other human institutions. But they stand high in the regard of those qualified to judge the values of journalism. And in spite of anything that Mr Webb or his colleagues may say to the contrary, they are free. It will be a bad day for New Zealand when this claim can no longer be upheld.