DEMAGOGUES AND DEMOCRACY.

Waikato Times, Volume 113, Issue 18928, 24 April 1933, Page 9

DEMAGOGUES AND DEMOCRACY.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —I was interested in your comment under the above heading in Friday's issue, and I endorse your opinion that Mr Lang, the ex-Nevv • South Wales Labour Premier, whilst ) allegedly championing the cause of • democracy is a demagogue and one of ' the most assertive type. It has al- ' ways seemed strange to me that 1 whilst the Labour Party in all coun--1 tries stoutly proclaim the “rights of democracy’’ their leaders are the most autocratic specimens on the earth’s surface. Thus one of Mr Lang’s late colleagues admitted that in the Labour Cabinet the minor ministers had no right to personal views or private judgment—they were abject, cringing sycophants who- were afraid to lay claim to their own souls. This was the ex-Minister’s pronouncement:—■ “There are no Teaks’ in the Cabinet, we have one leader who announces the policy. When he announces it we follow, and as soon as he announces it we know where-we stand. We do not seek to know what he is going to do, and are prepared to surrender our judgment, if necessary, in advance.” Surely such a confession is an absolute disgrace to anything standing -upright. It proclaims that the Lang Cabinet was composed of political lickspittles who entrusted their political souls and consciences to . the keeping of an arrant dictator. If that is a specimen of Labour political morality may we be preserved from it. —I am, etc., MACK, Te Awamutu, April 21, 193^.