MINORITY IN CHARGE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 83, 5 October 1938, Page 23

MINORITY IN CHARGE

"Mr. Lee's book was not supposed to reach New Zealand until after the election," said Mr. W. L. Barker, National candidate for Wellington East, at Miramar last evening, '"but the funny part of it is that we had "a copy in our hands before Mr. Lee knew it was in the country."

This remark was made during Mr. Barker's description of New Zealand's journey towards what he called State absolutism.

Mr. Lee did not seem to know quite what he had written, the speaker added.

A voice: He wrote it with one hand; you could not write it with two.

Mr. Barker: If I were as one-eyed as you I could not write it with 100 hands.

All the Socialist writers—Hugh Dalton, Cole, Marx —had made it clear. Mr. Barker went on, that in order to establish a system of State Socialism it was xiecessary first of all to control the finances of the country, because, this bound the people hand and foot. This was implied in Mr. Lee's book. But the first man to write that had been Lenin, and Lenin's advocates were still writing it. "That is the book which was not supposed to reach New Zealand until after the election," Mr. Barker went on, "but we -are wide-awake and we got hold of a copy. You can examine all systems of Slate Absolutism from the earliest days of history and you will find- that a minority take over complete control, and the mass cf the people arc compel led to bo servile and humble, and tlv: ;-;rit of the country is destroyed."