Bay Of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. MONDAY, AUGUST 9, 1948 WHY NOT BRIGHTER ELECTIONS?

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 79, 9 August 1948, Page 4

Bay Of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. MONDAY, AUGUST 9, 1948

WHY NOT BRIGHTER ELECTIONS?

For the serious-minded, it might be as well to explain here and now that not all the suggestions and comments that follow are to be regarded as intended to be-taken literally. They are, however, intended to suggest That we take our political squabbles in this little country far too quietly. We lack real political intensity. • „ Perhaps it is the fact that our general election is merely to choose a parliament To represent (an ill-chosen word, perchance?) a handful of people that causes us to take the whole thing so calmly. But it should be remembered that we probably have as many politicians per head of population as, if not more than, other allegedly civilised country. That dreadful truth should make us pause and ponder. It seems from what has been published lately about the preparations for the American Presidential election, that we are far behind the times. People dancing and swooning to swing bands, organised barrackers with concentrated war-cries, deep voices booming in dramatic darkness, fireworks, hot dogs, Coca-cola and free fights—all these are glamorising trimmings that our own elections lack. Why should we miss the fun? Why can’t we have a band playing theme songs like these: “A quid’s worth for a quid, Give us, Sid, Sid, Sid!” “Acid, Acid acid drons, the man who doesn’t falter —We want Walter!” “ Snuff lebuster, snufflebuster,. snuffing out the reds, Making all our Communists shudder in their beds, Snufflebuster, snufflebuster, always on the job, Snuffing out the heretics— Good old Bob!” Perhaps the poultry farmers could have their own chant, set to a sort of barnyard background of band music and so forth: “Wheat, wheat, what about it, Pete?” Nor need the chants be the only things.-We could have, parades with decorated floats, depicting politicians twisting election pledges into all the funny shapes they do get twisted into, conjuring with figures, dressing up facts to make them look like other facts—all the merry little part}' tricks which we have become accustomed to accept and more or less ignore with semiboredom.

Perhaps our sense of humour is the thing that keeps our elections from taking on the theatrical aspect of the US.A. or the shot-gun trend of the warmer blooded Latin American countries. It is definitely unlikely that an audience of reasonably sensible

New Zealanders would allow their votes to be swayed by a crooner drooling slogans in idiotic doggerel, or by a swing band belting out the racket that so often passes for music in the States. To us all the flashy arts o£ the side-show barker to elect our national leaders would strike us as being not only undifnified but downright funny. On the other hand, an American—and more particularly a South American —would probably consider our elections deadly dull affairs. However, though no one here would argue seriously in favour of turning our most important civic duty into a large-scale vaudeville show or a periodic civil war, there is reason to suggest that we do not take a sufficiently intelligent interest in the choosing of our Parliamentary representaaives and in their work when we have chosen them.