PARTY POLITICS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4840, 12 June 1925, Page 2

PARTY POLITICS.

(Reprinted from “Times,” June 5 ,)

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—May 1 suggest to your readers that in the present concentration of the public mind on the idea of getting back to the two party system We are in danger of losing a favourable opportunity of escaping altogether from the evils of party polities.

Everyone familiar with the practical operation of our two party system knows that it was vicious, and that a return to it caunot bring the conflicting sections of the community into a common national policy. This return is. in fact, being advocated as a means of helping one important section of our people to fight another. Mr Baldwin in England and Mr Coates in New Zealand are both appealing to us to escape from party politics into a common national programme of enterprise Mr Baldwin says lie had no intention of wasting time in denouncing movements like Socialism, but is going to attack the evils which produced them. Mr Coates, in his recent declaration of policy, goes even farther, and indicates the steps we must take to reach a national policy. He says: “I have sought to give the general public the best and most immediate return tor the expenditure incurred on their behalf.”

He is speaking here of the general Government departments he has controlled ; but he extends this principle to all general and local Government services, and a little consideration will enable anyone to realise that it must, also apply to national services privately controlled. For, whether national services are managed by the Government or private individuals, it is the public energy, the public savings, and the public living that are at stake.

In order that the public may have the best return for the expenditure of its energy .and its savings Mr Coates declares it to be his Government’s aim to assist “the effort of each ciitzen in his or her natural vocation.” And he proclaims his belief that “with a will on the part of all the results we desire can be obtained.”

In other words, Mr Coates seeks to organ fee our people in their natural vocations in a common effort to win as great a living for the public as we can from our natural resources. The main difficulty in tho way of the national adoption of Mr Coates’ policy is that the general body of our people are not satisfied that it is the best that can be devised in the interests of the individual. There is no known means by which the public can be satisfied on this point, until, they believe there is something in the constitution of a nation that inevitably requires the adoption of this policy. The way to this belief is a public investigation of the elements of known organisations. It will then be found, as a matter of demonstrable fact, that the constitution of every known organisation is of the same nature ; for no matter in what form of words men have clothed the constitutions of their organisations it has never been possible for any organisation to escape from the control of its natural constitution.

Investigation discloses it to be demonstrable that there is inherent in the constitution of ever}’ known organisation an obligation on the part of the individual member to seek the welfare of the organisation—an gation he cannot avoid without, injury to what we call his mind or soul. The essential preliminary, theij, to the general acceptance of a national policy and our escape from party politics lies in this public investigation. F. G. DALZIELL.