The Press Thursday, November 17, 1927. Pledges and Politics.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19160, 17 November 1927, Page 8

The Press Thursday, November 17, 1927. Pledges and Politics.

One of the most illuminating speeches made during the further debate on the Licensing Amendment Bill in the House of Representatives yesterday was that of Mr H. L. Tapley, one of the Dunedin members. Mr Tapley confessed that although he was heartily opposed to Prohibition he had pledged himself to vote for what the Prohibitionists desired. "It was an awkward " position to be in," he said, " to have "to vote one way because you had

"made pledges although your inelina"tion might be the other way," and he added, with perfect truth, that there probably were other members in the same position. Mr Tapley was very foolish indeed to pledge himself to vote for proposals which he thought were noxious, and why he did so we do not know. He was, of course, quite without political experience, and a very easy victim for the snare laid for him by the astute organisers of the Prohibition movement. He has learned his lesson, however, for he intends to give no pledges again. But there are other members, less frank and more experienced, who gave pledges to the Prohibitionists without feeling any uneasiness of mind, little as they believed in the propriety of the proposals they engaged themselves to support. They gave these pledges simply because they were afraid that if they did not they would antagonise the Prohibition vote. They understood that the New Zealand Alliance's questionnaire was not de- ! vised merely out of the Alliance's | scientific curiosity, but was an indirect threat. They assumed that the Prohibitionists would consider nothing, in casting their votes, except the attitude of the candidates on the issues selected by the Alliance. When, on a previous occasion, we said that the Prohibition zealots do disregard everything in a candidate except his attitude on the liquor question, we were angrily contradicted and condemned by leading Prohibitionists. Now, the Prohibitionists cannot • have it both ways. They cannot prdtest that they did not buy and pay for these pledges unless they admit that no electoral consideration passed, and they cannot admit that no consideration passed without reducing the "pledges" to mere expressions of candidates' opinions at the time of asking. They cannot, that is to say, reproach any member who'.forgets his pledge without themselves incurring the reproach of having obtained pledges by means of a threat. There are, of course, many people who believe in Prohibition and vote for Prohibition but who vote at the same time for members who do not believe in Prohibition or in the bare majority or in the two-issue ballot-paper. But it is undeniable that the policy of the Alliance has been to make a candidate's views on Prohibition the criterion of his fitness for membership of the House. We believe that the antiProhibitionist majority in the country, added to those Prohibitionists who are not so fanatical as to subordinate everything to their cause, amounts to a body of public opinion strong enough to frown down and vote down any future attempt by. the* New Zealand Alliance to make a candidate's election dependent upon his attitude on the liquor question. Our Parliament is elected to deal with matters of infinitely greater importance than the liquid diet of the nation, and there can be no guarantee that the general sense of the nation respecting these matters would be reflected in a Parliament whose composition was largely determined by a strong fanatical minority. There is no way, of course, of preventing any sectional organisation from issuing questionnaires and asking for pledges from candidates, but there is a practical method, all the same, whereby these sectional fanaticisms can be checked. The political Parties could, and should, adopt the rule that no candidate will be officially recognised or supported who does not refuse to give pledges on any matter outside the official Party programme. All the Parties, and all the politicians, present and prospective, would welcome such a rule, and whether the other Parties adopt it or not, the Reform Party ought to do so. It would leave every candidate free to express his views on any subject he chose, but it would operate against the undue influence of particularigt • minorities in national politics.