Parliament And Public Opinion

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 16, 14 October 1942, Page 6

Parliament And Public Opinion

Sir, —There are few who will not agree with your editorial on Saturday, in which you state, “there was never greater need for an active and vigilant public opinion on the management of our national affairs, than there is today.” Unfortunately there seems to be something wrong in this Dominion with the conception of democracy and the working parts of same. a real national Government been formed with an efficient Ministry of Information to watch employment, wages, cost of living, prices and distribution, all sections of the community would have been more united and satisfied with the machinery of government.

Parliament, and not caucus or outside organizations, is the last rampart of a democracy, lienee the necessity for an enlightened and critical public. Britain, with an alert and critical public, develops more efficiency in its national war effort than would be possible under the deadening hand of suppression or undue censorship. A state based upon the totalitarian philosophy can never achieve for the people as a whole what democracy can, provided, of course, we slay the dragous of selfishness and distrust, also any directing powers that tend to undermine the parliamentary system and constitutional government. Public interest will be focused on Parliament when it reassembles, for the reason that apart from recent happenings in our political aud industrial life, the rising cost of living, which savours of inflation, is causing concern. Inflation occurs with an excess of currency over goods and services. The cost of living is forced up and there is a demand for higher wages. So the costs rise and there comes into being the vicious spiral ' of inflation which, unless controlled, means impoverishment for all.

It is to be hoped that in Parliament

members will not look through partycoloured glasses at problems of urgent national importance, as it is impossible to wear party-coloured glasses and be a judiciously-minded politician. . Parliament is always at its best when it is permitted freedom of speech and action, thus making democratic government more than a name.—l am, etc., T. A. FRASER. AVellington, October 12.