TE AWAMUTU COURIER Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays MONDAY, 28th NOVEMBER, 1949 VOTING DAY APPROACHES

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 79, Issue 7138, 28 November 1949, Page 4

TE AWAMUTU COURIER Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays MONDAY, 28th NOVEMBER, 1949 VOTING DAY APPROACHES

THE PEOPLE have now reached the closing stages of the election campaign, and by now most voters have sufficiently considered the issues and have decided how the vote will be recorded. In this way democracy is tested and has its really valuable expression. Nevertheless, it is fair to acknowledge in some quarters the signs of bigotry and intolerance, of pre-conceived hatred of opposing political views, and very certainly an unwillingness to concede even so much as consideration of what can be seriously put forward for the public welfare. Bui this bigotry— ; this rabid partisanship—ds becoming discounted as throughout the electorate there is evidence of a healthier regard for national welfare, and even a wavering aloofness from partisan alliances. Actually people are recognising how vastly the political administration has extended itself in recent years until, from the more positive rules of good government and the shaping of codes for community conduct, government has extended so largely over the industrial, the monetary, and the economic systems as to influence—-even to direct—‘the whole course of community conduct. By no means is this peculiar to New Zealand; it features the course of government wherever selfgovernment obtains, and can be fully seen in the decisions of all international conferences;. It can be seen quite clearly, too, in all that is offered by all who have submitted programmes and policies in the election campaign. It can be reduced to degree or extent of governmental influence whether there should be nationalisation in its bearing on social and local institutional life as well as in industrial and trading activities or whether greater individual responsibility can be developed within the framework of a more independent citizen economy. In Great Britain it has been claimed that “ nationalisation has made no contribution to Britain’s recovery . . . nor have the basic problems of the nationalised industries been solved.” But the retreat from the socialist scheme of nationalisation is not so easy—in fact, can create many new problems—but it should not be beyond the wdt of man to devise means whereby public welfare is made constant wifh individual initiative resourcefulness, and the full flow of enterprise. In any case, that is clearly the issue at the elections—-whether the socialist, or nationalisation, programme shall be pursued or whether the country can and should retrace its administrative steps toward socialisation and restore greater freedom of enterprise to the people. The Government is not advancing the claim for socialisation as it did at earlier elections: that is fully evident. But just as evident is the influence of a body of opinion within the Government that any retreat from nationalisation is not desired. But the opposing faction ‘akes a clear and definite stand that there should be greater freedom for the individual and a form of society centred upon the importance, the dignity, and the ultimate value of the mdividual human being. A point of

view in Britain may be stated in New Zealand: Wherever modern life tends to dwarf the individual in comparison with the economic, political, or social unit the need is to humanise organisation, not to organise humanity.”

And that, as recorded at the elections this week, will be the major decision which the people shall register.