THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 1934. PLANNING TOO MUCH.

Wairarapa Age, 2 March 1934, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 1934. PLANNING TOO MUCH.

Though it is still in part only a general outline, waiting to be completed in its details, the programme issued by the National Executive of the New Zealand Legion is sufficiently definite in terms to enable a fairly confident opinion to be formed of its merits. An extended summary of the programme appeared in our news columns yesterday. It proposes, in brief, the planned transformation of the Dominion from its present condition to that of a well ordered and well governed country carrying something like twice its present population. Most of the changes proposed are highly desirable, but the task immediately confronting New Zealanders Is not that of constructing a perfect State. We shall do very well indeed if in the next few years we are able to overcome some of the worst of our existing difficulties. In shaping any practical programme of political reform it is necessary to pay due regard to human and other physical limitations. Too much elaboration at the outset and an attempt to cover too much ground in planning ahead, will doom any programme to failure and convert it into mere debating society matter. Judging by the support it attracted last winter, the legion is or was capable of becoming a very- powerful organisation indeed. Had its leaders concentrated meantime upon mobilising support for a short programme of urgent and essential reforms—a programme capable of being stated briefly in simple and easily understood terms —the legion might have become a decisive factor in the political life of the Dominion. A constructive treatment of unemployment by the extension of small settlement and in other ways would necessarily have taken a leading place in this programme, but elaborate schemes of co-ordinated debt redemption and immigration might well have been left to a later time. The drastic reform of local government by the establishment of large local authorities and the decentralisation of governing powers is a supremely important forward step on which there should be no compromise or toleration of delay, but it does not greatly matter meantime whether there are eighty or forty members in the House of Representatives. A real reform of local government would undermine and go far to destroy what is worst in the party system. The cessation of external borrowing and reasonable measures of currency management are other measures on which practical and immediate action is possible. Still another is the economical control of transport. The legion might have shaped a programme of immediate reforms offering great benefits to the country and which all political parties would have been bound to support. Instead it has brought out an immensely elaborate programme, which will be regarded by a great many people with complete indifference because it is so elaborate and will give rise in more limited sections to endless disputation over its details, their relation and arrangement. The legion declares that it is not a party, but "a political movement that aims to make provision for all parts of our nation.” It is announced by the executive, however, that in the absence of a unity government on a nonparty basis and the possibility of an election being carried out on party lines, “it will be the duty of the legion to organise the electorates so that it can take such action as the eircum-

stances direct in order to secure adequate consideration of, and implement action on, its proposals. The legion seems to be in some danger of becoming merely another political party and of accentuating, instead of clearing up, the political confusion and. tension that are now rife. OTO FIRE ALARMS. By the internal rearrangement of telephones, a very great improvement is being made in the alarm system of the Masterton Fire Brigade. The new plan under which one instrument is to be reserved solely for alarm calls and fitted with a very loud bell seems -to be a thoroughly good one and should work well in practice. The position with regard to the special fire alarm apparatus is still a little uncertain and should be cleared up as soon as possible. The investigations the Fire Board is making into the state of the apparatus should not be prolonged unduly. According to informatibru available, the alarm installation is quite a good one, though by no means new, but may have lost efficiency to some extent for want of expert attention and maintenance. The services'of an electrical expert of special qualifications are, of course, needed in maintaining any installation of the kind at concert pitch. Any question; raised regarding the condition of the installation, and particularly as to tlie state of the switchboard which is- an all* important part of the apparatus, should be settled very easily. The Post and Telegraph Department, for example, has in its service experts who are well qualified to inspect and maintain apparatus of the kind. The Fire Board should enlist the aid either of' this Department, or of any other agency with which it may be able to make more satisfactory or advantageous terms, in having its alarm equipment maintained in thoroughly satisfactory working order. Nothing should, be taken for granted where the reliability and efficiency of this equipment are concerned.