Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, AUGUST 23, 1943. POLITICS IN WAR TIME.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 August 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, AUGUST 23, 1943. POLITICS IN WAR TIME.

QUESTION of some interest, with the election campaign about to open, concerns the public reaction to the broadcasting of Parliamentary proceedings, particularly in recent days. There have been some important and reasonably wellconducted debates, well worth listening to. There have also been a good many occasions, however, when the proceedings of the House of Representatives have descended to a level at which they have awakened, very generally, feelings far removed from admiration.

Many people, no doubt, have found an immediate remedy for this, state of affairs simply by turning the knobs of their wireless sets, but it is not uncommon to hear the opinion expressed that something ought to be done about the extent to which our representatives in Parliament, in these grimly serious days of war, have engaged in petty and rather childish backbiting and party wrangling.

How far this spirit of criticism may make itself felt on September 25 remains to be seen. There is in any case no doubt that political candidates, during the next month, will best recommend themselves to the body of thinking electors by dealing in a responsible fashion with the grave issues by which this country, in common with a great part of the world, is faced.

Reasons for regretting that the Dominion should be plunged into an election at this time have lost nothing of their .force. They may, indeed, be accentuated, heavily before polling day arrives. It is now clear to all that xvo arc, as President Roosevelt has said, on the threshold of great events. A stage has been reached at which the Allies are prepared and ready to strike new and formidable blows at the enemy, not only in Europe but in the Pacific. It may be taken for granted that in the critical campaigns now impending New Zealand forces will play, as they have played from the outset, their full part.

If the politicians and people of the Dominion, with this prospect opened, are to second worthily the valiant efforts of our fighting forces, they must show themselves capable of setting aside little things and concentrating on those that matter most. It is, of course, right that affairs of national, Imperial and international importance should be discussed freely and fully, but they should be discussed objectively and dispassionately, with reasoned argument and with an avoidance’ of invective or of rhetorical appeals to passion and prejudice.

Where honest differences of opinion exist in regard to any aspect of repatriation or other important branches of domestic or external policy, candidates are bound to state where they stand, and why, but they should be able to do so without lowering the electoral campaign, in spirit, tone and temper, to the level of some recent debates in the House of Representatives. Those of us who remain at home—political candidates and electors alike—should be more than willing to follow the lead our fighting forces have never failed to give on the field of battle in concentrating undividedly on serious realities.

The achievement of this standard in the conduct of the election should be regarded as necessary on all grounds. Selfrespect demands an avoidance of paltry wrangling which would stand in contemptible contrast to the deeds and sacrifices of our fighting forces. Evidently, too, it; is only by serious thought and reasoned and constructive effort that we can make any hopeful approach to the problems, in some respects much more complex and difficult than those of the war effort, which will arise when victory has been achieved over the forces of evil to whom, in company with all men who are'or aspire to be free, we stand opposed.