SPIRIT OF TOLERANCE

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVIII, Issue 23278, 14 August 1945, Page 7

SPIRIT OF TOLERANCE

Sir, —Mrs S. A. Harrison may mean well but her knowledge and discernment are so lamentably weak that her attempt to do good ends only in opposing good. This attitude is typical of church adherents who render lip service to “true democracy” and the need for “tolerance,” yet in practice deny it to their opponents. Proof of this is supplied by Mrs Harrison herself. She flatters Mr J. C. Hay for his “Wide vision,” displayed at a meeting of the Farmers’ Union in Waimate on August 6, when she ought really to “commend” the attitude of Mr George Barclay. He had questioned the attitude of the Dominion executive in lodging a protest against the Government’s proposal to acquire the private shareholdings in the Bank of New Zealand without first obtaining a mandate from individual branches of the Union. From the discussion that followed it is obvious that a majority’ of the meeting was swayed by the orthodox political opinions of Messrs J. C. Hay and W. J. Fletcher and the importance of Mr Barclay’s protest was submerged in a political catch-as-catch-can which was entirely unconstitutional and should not have been permitted by the chairman. —I am, etc., Owen J. F. McKee.