AUSTRALIAN FASCISTS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 711, 11 December 1933, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN FASCISTS

TAKE TO THE MUUNTAINS TO WORK OUT A POLICY. . A TIIINKINiG CONGREISS. Healesville (Vic), Nov. 28. iSerious business is on foot dowu here. Fifty young Nationalists ranging in age from ahout 26 to 60 have transported tkemselves to a rendezvoiis in the blue hills of Healesville^ to find out what is wrong1 with the world. ' The earnestness of this al frescosymposium is to he gauged from the fact that whil-e we sit here discussiriig iHarliamen'tary standing orders one half, of Melhourne has gone to see Crawford play Perry and the other half to Henley. But boys will be boys, and even we brood on fundamentals. The moist spring wind, bringing from afar the pit-apat of rackets in the court just across the window, .keeps us jittering about restlessly in our armchairs and thinking of unparliamentary 'things, In f'act, the first word the chair-

ma.n had to say was, "No golf and tennis while the conference is sitting." To give you an idea what a young Nationalist is like, let me explain that most of those here exhibited are either members of the State House or hope to be, and that an atmosphere of horn-rimmed spectacles, plus fours, short pipes, public school blazers, contract bridge and the .novels of Mr. Priestly brood over the scene. "Wle are a thinking conference," said Mr. P. D. Phillips, in opening a discussion on "What we think of the present system of government." . Every country except France, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa has aibandoned the normal system of Parliamentary party government, he said, and even Britain to-day had an executive as dictatorial ,a.s America's. But in Austfalia there was an enormous growing distrust of the system and political thinkers must face this. "The reason for the distrust," said Mr. Phillips, "is to be found in the futile waste of time and effort that goes on in the House. "A young man who gets into Parliament finds tha.t what takes place there is an elaborate game, played j by old men with involved rules, and 1 scoring as intricate as contract bridge. "In the State House there is no need for half the fighting. A State Parliament deals with no broad issues,' hut with details of administration in education, health, .transport, and so on. "It is humbug to say that there are two fundamentally opposed philosophies in these matters. "The struggle which proeeeds constantly, futilely, on .this assumption, so that one party may turn out another, is, I think, what makes the average man sneer at politics. "The members fight for tiny victories over each other as ends in themselves; not to improve the administration. "To modify this system might take ten years; but w© ought to lay down a long-sighted plan for an institution that would retain the vigour of party politics and disregard the wasteful party eonflict in the Legislature. "Perhaps politics are f,a.ted to become a dirtier conflict of interests; but w-e ybung Nationalists should h'ave a go to make things better fchan ' they are." Mr. Phillips left the matter there, I rather lamely, after having hegun with such fine bravura. Some old gentlemen, who had sat up. rather straight at the start and j' twiddled their whiskers aggressively, I settled back with a grunt of satisfacMenzies, Attorney-General in the Yictorian Cabinet, and the dark horse •of the conference, got up and said

that there was nofching wrong with Parliament, and practieally no reason tion at the assurance that nothing would he done for 20 years or so, anyway. " ' But here Mr. T. Boheme, of Cainberwell, put a crimp in our picnic smiles by getting up and asserting that, whenever he went out on a platf orm people threw rotten eggs at him and demanded, "Give us your policy." • '"And wie can't,'' said Mr. Bqheme, "because whenever we start talking ahout policy, the leaders tell us . to s'hut up or we'll hurt certain people's f eelings."; i The chairman, sternly: You're iiot saying that the leaders of this organisation h'ave told you to trim your s,a.ils in elections. Mr. Boheme: Yes, they have, and you. know it. '"I don't believe we want to change Parliament at all," Mr. Boheme added sulkily. "Thats' what I think." . And Mr. Boheme spok© truer than he knew,, for, after a few inflammatory speeches by young Nationalists in the back seats, Mr. R. G. (to monkey with it at all., . "Pascism ," said Mr. ^nzies, "is incompatible with Parliamentary go-

vernment. Despite what Mfr Kent Hughes says, I can't imagine Fascism without dictatorship. A genius like JVEussolini might give a higher degree of effieiency than his country could get with a Parliament, but a Parliament will give a much greater liherty to the people, and, as Britons, we have a weakness for liberty ahove all things. "If you strengthen the Executive beyond the control of Parliament, as Mr. Hughes has suggested, it must hecome dictatorial, and from that necessarily must follow a loss of freedom." Mr. Menzies suggested that three things deterred the first-class man from seeking' a place in Parliament — first, the petty details on which Par- - -i ent concetoteftted most o tention, details that could he settled by a competent official; secondly, the machinations of the party Whip in telling a man that he must not speak of this or that and so humiliating him; and, thirdly, the idea that a man had to make parliamentary duties a whole-time job. "I don't think there's much wrong with Parliament," concluded Mr. Menzies, unless it is that we demand professional legislatoi's and pay them like amateurs." After this speed, which knocked the bottom out of the aspirations of the young Nationalists who came i prepared to follow Mr. Kent Hughes 1 along the ro,ad to Rome, everybody looked at everybody else rather sheepishly and began to wonder whether it wouldn't he possible to get up a dance for the rest of the evening.