Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1939. POLITICS OUT OF SEASON.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 February 1939, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1939. POLITICS OUT OF SEASON.

CONSIDERABLY to their loss, perhaps, New Zealanders as a bodv take comparatively little interest in politics m the periods between elections and in these periods there is apt to be a flat political calm. That being so, some people perhaps will regard as rather unseasonable and ill-timed the announcement by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Hamilton) ol an early campaign intended, as he has put it, to inform and ednea e public opinion “about the truth of the situation as we see it. Apart from any matter of party contention, however, there are a number of questions now confronting the people ol the Dominion which well deserve thoughtful attention and consideration. .Some of these questions perhaps may be discussec more profitably in the immediate injure than in the he.it am Tory of an election campaign.

Irrespective of their party convictions or leanings, people should be able to agree that, it is an excellent thing that acts and measures of policy should be discussed on theii merits. There is not much doubt that the more the citizens of a democracy can be induced to think about the handling of their affairs, the better they will be governed. We are supposed to be at an opposite extreme from the authoritarian systems o. government in which policy is determined by dictators, and accepted willy-nilly by the people over whom they rule. Democratic principles demand nothing less than an active popular interest at all times in the shaping of policy and a correspondingly effective pressure of public opinion upon those to whom political responsibility has been entrusted for the time being. .

Many critical issues of both internal and external policy are raised at the present time —issues upon which it is certainly desirable that the people of the Dominion should form their own opinions. In addition to questions of internal economic adjustment, we are confronted by problems ol defence, immigration and external trade upon which it is very necessary that clear ideas should be formed by the largest proportion possible of the people of the Dominion.

Some of the issues of internal policy now claiming attention are highly contentious, but it is on that account so much the more desirable that they should be discussed freely. The question of rising costs, for example, certainly is worth examining in all its bearings. It is claimed by spokesmen and supporters of. the present Government that rising costs have been offset adequately by higher wages. Critics of the Government maintain that the increase in earnings is by no.means universal, even amongst people of moderate means and that the effect of rising costs, and not least of high taxation, upon productive enterprise in general has been extremely detrimental.

A good deal is being said at. present too, from various standpoints, about the need tor a more balanced industrial economy in the Dominion. It is evidently desirable that these questions and others should be brought, to the dearest possible elucidation and that the people who are intimately concerned should be enabled to reach definite opinions, based on evidence, on the policy measures involved. From that standpoint an excellent purpose should be served by the campaign announced by the Leader of the Opposition and the rejoinder that no doubt will be made by the Government and its supporters. More may be done in these conditions to educate and inform public opinion than if the same ground were covered with an electoral battle in progress. THE FITNESS CAMPAIGN. of sports clubs and other bodies who are asked Io take part, in tomorrow’s procession to the Park, and those of them who care to do so in the display and gatheiing that is to follow, should recognise that they.are offered an opportunity of building up their own organisations and at. the same time of promoting objects ol a larger kind that well deserve to be supported. Keep Fit Week is intended to be the opening chapter in a national movement looking to the all-round culture''of body and mind—a movement taking shape in community co-operation in fostering healthy sport and recreation, together with cultural activities to which leisure may be devoted wisely and worthily. This is a movement which deserves to be supported equally from the point of view of brightening find broadening individual lives and from that 01. making the national community to which we belong stronger and more efficient than it otherwise would be. Taking the most hopeful view that is possible of world developments at the present day, democracies like our own evidently are called upon to make full and intelligent use of their opportunities. It is no longer rational to limit our outlook to our immediate environment and to the demands obviously made upon us at short range. Whether we like it or not, our fate as a people is identified in great part with the national and international movements that are developing in these days tern|lestuously and in some respects menacingly. Whatever hopes we entertain of a good future, not. for ourselves alone but for continuing generations, are dependent upon the stabilisation of world affairs. It is plainly incumbent upon us to make our own adequate contribution to that stabilisation. We cannot all make an extended study of world affairs, but. even those of us who are least informed cannot but he aware that Ihe.se are times in which insistent demands are made upon people who wish Io be free and prosperous, and in which easy drifting is dangerous. Fitness of body and mind is as important and promising a contribution as can be made to the solution of social, national and international problems. That, commanding fact should be appreciated readily and keenly in a democracy like New Zealand, with its pioneering past and its reasonably bright prospects of a greater fid lire. With the end of our first century of youthful nationhood about to be celebrated, the time is well chiisen for launching a movement which aims at rousing us Io a full development of our powers and to their application, in a spirit of co-operation, to the enlargement, of individual lives and to the attainment of worthy national objectives. Here and in other parts of the Dominion. Keep Fit Week should be supported whole-heartedly, not as a demonstration of the moment, but rather as the introduction to a great continuing movement from which much may be hoped.