NEW ZEALAND LEGION.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 June 1933, Page 10

NEW ZEALAND LEGION.

(To the Editor.) Sir,—l am pleased to have the opportunity of replying to the letter of Mr. C. Melton Patchett, appearing in your issue of .Time 1. His first statement is “the Legion proposes that, by simply changing our mode of Government, our ills and bills would vanish.” This criticism is entirely erroneous and ill-founded. Nowhere in the booklet mentioned, nor I think in any public announcement of the aims and objects of the Legion, has it ever been stated that the Legion claims to banish, by this or that single remedy, the difficulties which beset our country to-day. On the contrary, a primary aim of the Legion is to educate every citizen to realise that there is no short-cut from insolvency to prosperity, but a long and strenuous journey, which under our present system we have yet not even commenced to face. And therein lies one vital point of difference between the Legion and the usual political party with its spurious promises S such as Mr. Patchett himself describes. Th«s remaining charge made by your correspondent is that the Legion should announce here and now a definite policy “for both home and overseas.” Having for generations known no other than the party form of government, one may readily concede that, upon first' thought, this opinion is likely to be expressed. But let it be understood quite definitely that the Legion makes no excuse for lack of “political platform.” On the contrary, it deliberately and advisedly abstains at the present stage from anything in the nature of a “platform” (always excepting, of course, reform of the Parliamentary machine - ) and for this reason, that to do so would violate its own paramount principle of a Parliament of free men, unfettered by party pledge and able to deliberate and vote according to their own judgment and conscience. Given such a personnel of free and nationallyminded men, the Legion is content that it should first reform the present system in such manner as it may find best suited to its purse and needs, and similarly that it should then adopt such policy as its members, in their majority judgment,

may decide. It is to be added that the Legion, by aid of its research department already established, and by the mobilisation in its .national executive council of the best available thought throughout New Zealand, will operate as a force outside of Parliament to assist the bers within the House in the creation of that new,machine, in the formulation of policy measures, and last but not least in resisting the usual threats,, pressure and cajolery.- of sectional and selfish interdo not -hesitate to say that upon a fair. and dispassionate consideration of the foregoing. explanation Mr. Patchett s comparison with, ah election of directors white in Ignorance of the proposed company’s business'becomes but a false analogy; at the saffie time I admit , at once that, for those who cannot sever their adherence to ; government by party pledged- to' a .pre-determined platform, there' is no place within the rapidly growing ranks of the New Zealand Legion.—r am,*, etc.,. ' ' R. H.-QUILLIAM, • Taranaki Division. N.Z. Legion. New Plymouth, June. 2.