STATESMEN NEEDED

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 66, Issue 5602, 7 April 1943, Page 3

STATESMEN NEEDED

CHOICE OF CANDIDATES ELECTORS’ RESPONSIBILITY “The men we send to Parliament at the general election will have to lead the country through the war and the critical period in the early days of the peace,” said Mr R. M. Algie, of the New Zealand Freedom Association, when speaking on the responsibility of electors in selecting Parliamentary candidates. “We shall need statesmen, not mere party politicians, but men of character, courage, ability and vision, of ♦olerant outlook and breadth of judg4p*nent who can think in terms of the spirit and ideals of democracy, and who can rise far above the greed and ignorance of sectionalism and of pure materialism,” he added. “The people themselves are the only foundation on which the grand edifice of democracy can be raised and built, but the brains and hands of those who plan and build it are those whom we send to Parliament. If the foundation is weak and shifty nothing of value will long endure on it, but no matter how good the foundations may be the structure erected will be no finer and no better than and ability of the brains and Hands that erect it.”

It rested entirely with the people to search for and elect the best men and women as candidates, he said. The critical date in any election year and the really important time was when the official candidate was being selected from the number offering. Electors, therefore, should leave no stone unturned in an effort to bring forward the candidates best fitted for Parliamentary service. The man selected must be permitted, on election as member, to regard himself as being the servant of the electorate as a whole; he must feel that as a member of a party he was bound to it, not by a steel chain, but by a bond of allegiance to a common ideal. On the question of party ties, Mr Algie said that men of the type he had mentioned would not readily bind themselves to accept slavishly the rulings and commands of an organisation. They had gained success in business or eminence in their profession because of their independence and individuality and their initiative and personality.