TE AWAMUTU COURIER Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays WEDNESDAY, 8th DECEMBER, 1948 PANDERING POLITICS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 77, Issue 7000, 8 December 1948, Page 6

TE AWAMUTU COURIER Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays WEDNESDAY, 8th DECEMBER, 1948 PANDERING POLITICS

IT is possible to detect in world politics a condition of insecurity based upon very grave influences and to suspect that unless some greater semblance of political strength can be regained a future of serious instability will have to be faced. In most countries to-day the signs are evident. The political tragedy of France, where stable government seems to be as far away as possible, is a glaring example. Reports coming from Germany are scarcely more assuring, and in recent months there has clearly been a bid for popularity by Eastern and Western Powers. The very recent disclosures about the Berlin situation that superficial economies have been used to win favour and that the limit of political generosity had been reached by the Western Powers had a grim significance. Nearer home the troubles in Victoria arise in a partisan opinion as to the point at which the Government should make a stand against militant groups. Here in New Zealand the policy of appeasement and compromise has been carried to extreme limits as the Government meets one affront after another. It is no secret that although the Government survived by a narrow margin every critical division during the session. there is an unhappy caucus, and that a minority “ left wing ” controls the destiny of the Government. Little wonder in such circumstances that appeasement and compromise are so frequently in evidence in both legislation and administration. In effect, it means that militant groups use pressure to actually regulate policy. A classic example was the Government’s taking over of the Bank of New Zealand against the will of its responsible Ministers, and the same tendency has been revealed in much of the recent legislation. Under such conditions stability cannot be gained, and there will be insecurity so long as unholy alliances exist within the political groups. The evil arises in the electorate, and has merely its expression in the parliamentary system. It results in a pandering form of political government, the absence of statesmanship and leadership for the economic or social welfare of the people, and a constant yielding in submission to demands for concession. What could have been more disgusting than the boast of a partisan in Parliament than the braggart claim that next year’s budget would win the elections a few months later. It assumes that the political mentality of the citizen has so degenerated as to allow that voltes are a commodity of the marketplace to be bought by the party which offers the price and that people can be hoodwinked into subscribing the public revenues in order to live through systems of distribtuion from the public funds. Plainly, it is an issue for the people. If they really desire a democratic way of life which :

is consistent with its expression through a responsible form of government, then clearly they must exercise their franchise in a more responsible manner. To allow governments to remain submissive to militant—even greedy—groups is to create the elementary conditions of instability; to go on mistaking pandering political generosity for leadership and statesmanship is to surrender the elementary principles of democratic government; to go on assessing political generosity and reliance on any governing party as the means of sustenance is to forfeit even semblance of self-reliance and individual independence, for it follows naturally that a ward of the State must soon become

the obedient servant of the State. Obviously an educated democracy should arise in responsible citizenship, and a system of free government should be opposed entirely to the idea 1 of a pandering reliance on the State. In short, pandering politics have their origin in the electorate, as it is inevitable that as the product of a popular election governments can be only as good or as bad as ! the electors make them.