Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, JULY 24, 1942. SEEKING THE MIDDLE WAY.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 July 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, JULY 24, 1942. SEEKING THE MIDDLE WAY.

TN his presidential address at the opening of the Dominion X conference of the New Zealand National Party, in Wellington on Wednesday, Mr Alex Gordon dealt in an arresting though unsensational fashion with principles of public policy. Apparently he had in mind much more than an after-war transition period of limited, though uncertain duration when he said that “the question whether the extreme measures of Government control brought in for war purposes would be relinquished in peace time was one of the most important in the political sphere in the immediate future,” and that: The National Party believed that much of the activity of the community must, and should be, managed by individuals free to follow their genius and enterprise. On the other hand, they had to concede the necessity for planning and direction on a far wider scale than hitherto to meet the basic needs of the State and its citizens. Like others who seek with an open mind the middle way,. Mr Gordon is not unlikely to find himself attacked from both sides. It will not be surprising if enthusiastic socialists accuse him of stealing their political clothes. Simultaneously some people of a more conservative tendency may be inclined to accuse him. of deserting the principles of individualism and private enterprise. Before contention is allowed to develop on these lines, it may be well to examine dispassionately Mr Gordon s contention that a measure of sweet reasonableness would result in a judicious combination of individualism and socialism, which, in co-operation, would be for the good of humanity as a whole. ■Whatever may be thought about possible and desirable. lines of development, it is a matter, not of controversy, but of fact that a combination, though not always a judicious combination, of individualism and socialism is what we have had in this country for many years past, from governments of various party colours, sharply opposed one to another. We are at a stage of political evolution in which a conflict between socialists and anti-socialists could be waged only by extremists of one brand or the other. The fact, however, that a combination of individualism and socialism is accepted and approved by a great majority of the citizens of the Dominion makes it more than ever necessary that each step in public policy should be weighed and tested keenly on its merits. It should not be concluded, as it is at times, that because a given measure is broadly in accordance with the ruling trend it is entitled automatically to be approved. There are some developments of State regimentation in this country which a great many people regard as something worse than futile and it must be hoped, for the sake of the Dominion and its people, that when the-time comes, unrelenting war will be waged on such developments. One condition of a healthy democracy is that politicians should be broken of their prevailing habit of defending every item of State machinery that comes temporarily under their control. Political, administrators should be as eager to scrap or amend what is defective in State machinery as to maintain what is good. While, however, regimentation is only too easily overdone, boldly constructive planning, which must not be limited to private and individual enterprise, undoubtedly will be needed, after the war and in the days to follow, in dealing with vital aspects of economic and social policy. Apart from questions of social security on which a large though incomplete measure of agreement has now been reached, it would be shameful and indefensible to allow any such conditions of unemployment to develop after this war as followed the war of a quarter of a century ago. There should be unqualified approval of the contention quoted by Mr Gordon that what is required to reanimate our political and economic system is a new faith in a new moral purpose.