NEW ZEALAND LEGION.

Waikato Times, Volume 114, Issue 18987, 3 July 1933, Page 9

NEW ZEALAND LEGION.

/ ? r (To the Editor.) Sir, —I feel considerably relieved at the answer of Mr Richards, M.P., to my letter of May 23. When I stated that I believed Mr Richards was sincere and would not be knowingly guilty of misrepresentation I was expressing not only the Impression I myself had gained on brief acquaintanceship, but the opinion of many who knew him intimately. I was, therefore, considerably puzzled when I read the report of his address at Hamilton, as well as a subsequent letter to the New Zealand Worker, In which he spoke of the Legion as a military dictatorship; that the Legion would have power to call the military to its aid; that it had vested interests to buy up press propaganda and to train and equip youth. As Mr Richards would not have said such things without believing them, it Is obvious that he has been misinformed in all respects. The extracts from a transcript of the report of the Palmerston meeting were not made by Mr Richards himself, but were extracts presented to him us such. Now when I stated that the statements alleged to have been made were untrue in their detail and implication I was saying what anyone who had a verbatim report of the address would have himself perceived, and indeed what any careful reader of the extract itself might have surmised. The detail concerns only a word or two here and there, but the implication is such as to completely reverse the real meaning. I have verbatim copies of many speeches about that ' time wffiich include very similar phrases to those which Mr Richards quoted. For instance: “The movement had been called Fascist, New Guard, or a party. It was neither one nor the other.” It w’as quite obvious that it could not be all three, which were mutually contradictory, so as a positive affirmation the extract —standing alone, as given by Mr Richards—had no meaning. I have also said I can conjure up a vision of a Mussolini or a Hitler ruling New Zealand, with some of our sober members parading in brown or black shirts; also that I could just imagine some of the local dignitaries who had joined us parading through the streets with the eye-slits and hooded cowls of the Ku-Klux-Klan. Communistic or Fascist systems with limited franchise are foreign to democratic government as we know it, and therefore removed from consideration of the Legion, in whose constitution the maintenance of democratic government is one of the vital points. This is no after-thought, but has been from the very beginning the ve n y essence of the movement. If critics constantly made assertions to the contrary and would not accept denial the best way to counter them was to expose their inherent absurdity by ridicule. The Anglo-Saxon temperament is not adjusted to and would not tolerate forms of dictatorship. It can, however, have little interest for your readers in pursuing the details of a misunderstanding. I can perhaps elucidate in short form the conception which brought the Legion Into being. It was a realisation of the truth discovered when social and economic reformers were, in the early part of last century, trying to get attention for urgent economic reconstruction, the betterment of the factory workers' conditions, the control of female and child labour, etc. The voices of these were unheard because it w'as not in the interests of the reactionaries to hear them. The House of Commons was under the influence of a corrupt form of suffrage in which the rotten boroughs played a conspicuous part. To quote W. B. Munro in his excellent treatise on "The Governments of Europe”: “The hours of labour were long and the conditions intolerable. . . . But the unreformed House of Commons made no response. So it gradually dawned on the people that no programme of social or economio betterment could be put into effect until Parliament had itself been reconstructed. Political reform, in other words, must come first." Without making any aspersions on the sincere men to be found on all sides of the House of Representatives the Legion maintains —and it has never been seriously contradicted —that the whole of our methods and system of government, including the party forms and the procedure of our governmental institutions require drastic overhaul before the necessary measures, however well devised, can be effectively implemented and administered without the intrusion of considerations oilier than the interests of the people. We should be glad to furnish Mr Richards with the fullest possible information in regard to the movement, as we have endeavoured to furnish it to the public. i

The basic principle of the Legion, that the solution of our problems can he solved by mutual co-operation in thought and action for the good of the people as a whole, and not by the relentless warfare of one class against another, is the centre around which all discussion should revolve, it' this postulate is wrong the Legion is attempting Hie impossible. Those who think tlie basic principle is wrong should fearlessly express their belief, following it to its logical consequences Those who think it is right and that, the Legion’s methods for attaining it are wrong should show a better way. Criticism and. thought along these lines would clarify the whole issue in a way which would be welcomed by the Legion, no less than by the public who are waiting to see in what direction they can best assist the national welfare.- —1 am, etc., R. CAMPBELL BEGG. Wellington, June tiS, 1933.