Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, JUNE 22, 1943. A PRE-ELECTION DEBATE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 June 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, JUNE 22, 1943. A PRE-ELECTION DEBATE.

JJAVINGr occupied thus far two weeks of working time in the House of Representatives, the Financial Debate seems likely to last at least for another week before it drags to an end. A great many people probably feel that more time is being spent on the debate than it is worth. It is true that there have been a number of constructive and helpful speeches, but there has 1 been also a considerable amount of unprofitable party sparring which has a paltry ring in these days of war.

At all times many of our politicians take 1 hemselves much too seriously and over-estimate their own importance in the scheme of national life. Some of them are fond of posing as benefactors of their kind opposed by individuals of a very much less desirable type. They forget that politicians in the main do what they are impelled or allowed to do by the people who elect them and that social advancement and benefits are not the gift of political parties—these are only a part, and a very imperfect part, of the machinery of State—but are determined and made possible by the developing power and intelligence of the community, by whom members and parties are entrusted with limited and temporary authority.

The peculiarity of the existing situation is that, although the .average politician has an ear attentively inclined to the electorate and is keenly intent on attracting votes, there is an apparently very general failure on the part of many of our present political representatives to perceive and appreciate the extent to which a very large proportion of the people of this country are sickened and disgusted by party wrangling in these gravely critical days.

This failure is attested in the decision to hold an early general election and has been made manifest also in the matter and tone of many of the speeches delivered in the Financial Debate. At a time when the Dominion, in. company with other free nations, is fighting for its life and when men', irrespective of their'political predilections, are dying,for it day by day, this principal debate of our Parliamentary session has been given over markedly, if not predominantly, to party contention and electioneering. »

Roundly condemning the decision to hold a general election on the ground that it would entail a. deplorable waste of time, energy and material which should have been devoted to the war effort, the Independent member for Egmont, Mr C. A. Wilkinson, who is retiring.from Parliament this year, declared in the House last week not only that the people generally would resent an election, but that if a secret vote of the House were taken that night it would be against an election. Suggestive light is thus thrown on the extent to which the national interest in momentous times has been and is being subordinated to party animosities and a narrow party outlook. AU thinking men and women must share the regret expressed by Sir Wilkinson that in this matter Parliament has failed to do its duty to the public in the critical times through which we are passing.