The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND TUESDAY, JULY 2. 1929 A CHANCE FOR POLITICIANS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 704, 2 July 1929, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND TUESDAY, JULY 2. 1929 A CHANCE FOR POLITICIANS

WHATEVER may be the difficulties ahead of the United Government the prospect of defeat in party skirmishing is not one of them. This obvious fact should deter the bifurcated Opposition in the House of Representatives from wasting time and money on formal debates. One of these traditional discussions will begin tomorrow evening when, keeping true to custom, the most innocent member of the Government will move the submission of a respectful Address-in-Reply to the GovernorGeneral’s speech at the opening of Parliament. And if tradition be followed slavishly scores of loquacious members will talk about everything in politics until they exhaust themselves and have dispersed the patience of the country. In theory such a full-dress debate is both wise and essential. It goes back to the old days when Parliaments had to deal with autocratic kings who ruled unwisely and spent public money prodigally on light women and the like, and when governments or the men who formed them had their price, and required close scrutiny. In such circumstances members of his Majesty’s Opposition had to he watchdogs ready to bark and bite. Time has changed the character of kings and statesmen, and now an Address-in-Reply debate in practice usually is the most futile verbal exercise of garrulous politicians. On the occasion in close sight, by far the best service the Opposition could render to the people would be to cut the traditional cackle in the interest of party and help a weak Government to get on quickly with constructive legislation and useful Parliamentary work. Some time ago, when the Leader of the Opposition was asked as to the intention of his party regarding a possible no-confidence amendment to the Address-in-Reply, Mr. Coates replied (if correctly reported) in the best Asquithian manner and wisdom —“Wait and see!” That answer was no less foolish than the question which evoked it. In the House, as in the country, there may not .be complete confidence in the Government, but such lack of faith as there is does not go the length of any desire or attempt to dismiss the Ward Administration at the outset of its restricted c-areer as a minority Ministry. There is nothing better in Parliament to replace it. And none of the parties, however keenly each desires control of the national exchequer and the joy of possessing power, wants to precipitate an emergency general election. They all want to run the full distance of the Parliamentary course, whether they are first or last in the race. So* if there he no real aim at forcing a political crisis involving the overthrow of the narrow-seated Administration, the Opposition parties will find it difficult to justify waste of valuable time on pretentious warfare against a feeble folk. All that may he said by them about the Government has been said already and is known of everybody, and it is very doubtful whether any further adverse criticism would make it any better. The Government created its worst difficulties by an initial fault in pitching its promises too high, much higher indeed than even its own exalted exuberance of optimism.

One thing is certain, if everything else may he obscure or as grey as a rainy sea: The Government means to do its best, and has a programme of legislative measures by which it hopes to remedy many ills and justify its luck in gaining the . right to provide remedies. And the Opposition must do something more than merely to hinder the construction of good legislation. It, too. must build wisely and well, or forfeit the chance of winning national favour after the country has become tired, of its capricious -choice of administrators. There is plenty of opportunity available for the performance of excellent Parliamentary work. The Dominion is sound enough in itself, but unfortunately is slack in enterprise. Primary production has recovered its strength to the extent of providing a record surplus of exports over imports and promises, under improved methods, to do better. The vaults of hanks are bursting with hoarded money. And trade shows a tendency toward briskness. But there is chronic unemployment and the need of extravagant expenditure on relief works and demoralising charitable aid. Also, manufacturing industries are much too limited and too excessively hindered by the competition of foreign goods for a young country which, at an enormous cost, provides industrial skill and high intelligence, hut fails to provide opportunity for their use. Thousands of well-educated hoys have left school, hut cannot find places in skilled industry. These are the problems that call for political wisdom, not for party chatter and party bickering.

SQUEAMISH LIBRARIANS

WITH the exception of Christchurch, the library authorities in the main centres of New Zealand have followed one another like sheep in banning the remarkable German war book, “All Quiet on the Western Front.” It is depressing to reflect that the prohibition of this pitiless revelation of war in all its stark reality was begun in Auckland, and the attitude of those responsible inevitably opens up the whole question of the responsibility of municipal libraries to the public that supports them. Quite consciously the librarians have, in this instance, defeated their own ends. Their rejection of the hook gave it such publicity that not for months will booksellers he able to cope with the glut of orders. Had the librarians chosen to place the book unobtrusively on their shelves, the ideas of service which some people believe to be the function of libraries would have been met, and less would have been heard about a work now irrevocably destined to be a best-seller. The curious part of the business is that “All Quiet on the Western Front” is not a pornographic novel in any sense of the term. There are any number of hooks on the shelves of the Auckland library which are infinitely worse, in their licentious implications, yet of far less value than Remarque’s harrowing textbook on the misery and squalor that proceed from international follies and the once-glorified pastime of war. Its author was one of a group of striplings who, at 18, volunteered for the trenches. One by one the narrator saw his associates fall, while slowly, as the months dragged by, the German soldiers realised that opposed to them were superior equipment, greater numbers, men of finer military calibre, better surgical supplies and—greatest of all—better food. And then the last man fell, on a day of desultory firing, such a day as was summed up by the official dispatch in the grim irony of that concluding phrase: “All Quiet on the Western Front.” The narrative overlooks no horror. It presents a haunting picture of pain and desolation. But against the coarse and even gross character of occasional terms must be balanced the fact that neither are the scanty elements of comedy suppressed. In banning such a book the library authorities have not shown a very high appreciation of the judgment and intelligence of New Zealand readers. From the large section of the public that depends on the libraries for its current literature, and reasonably expects the libraries to keep abreast of the times, they have deliberately withheld the most powerful of all war novels.