Untitled

Hokitika Guardian, 30 September 1933, Page 4

“PiCTATonsiiip js the ‘mode’ nowadays,” says the Birmingham Post. “We have it in Russia and Italy, in Poland and in Spain. We have it in one form in Germany and in another form in the United States. And nobody quite knows where or when it will show itself next, But all the ■dictatorships, without exception, have found their reason or their excuse in the breakdown of democratic institutions. What would our Labour Party do if to-morrow, or three months lienee, or six months hence, it managed by hook or by crook to secure a Parliamentary majority. Let Sir Stafford Cripps and his colleagues answer. They would, in respect of national politics, use that majority to produce an ‘Emergency Powers Act' whose main object and effect would l>e to create a dictatorship of Ministers. Ministerial Orders would have the value of law. Parliament would have no opportunity to discuss them; the nation would have no choice hut to obey them. In regard to local govern-ment-to-day almost as important an

element in our life as Parliamentary government- -the plan would be no less easy and no less effective. The District Commissioner, ‘the local energizer and interpreter of the will of the Government-,’ would supersede any local authority that proved ‘recalcitrant—that in its admin,ist ration sought to stem the flowing tide of the dictator’s policy. ‘ln England, now’ these things seem wild dreams or dreadful nightmares. That reading is hardly adequate when one thinks of what—if we may take Germany as an example or warning—a single election may achieve in a country that on paper, is almost excessively and obtrusively democratic.”