RADIO IN THE POLITICAL FIELD.

Radio Record, Volume III, Issue 46, 30 May 1930, Page 6

RADIO IN THE POLITICAL FIELD.

HE extent to which radio is now being. used in both Britain and the United States to enable leading statesmen and politicians to make direct contact with their constituents and the people at large leads us to imagine that it will not be possible much longer for the innovation to be withheld from New Zealand. After Mr. Philip Snowden, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, delivered his Budget recently ii the House of Commons, he took an early opportunity ; appearing before the microphone at 2L0, and expounding to ‘the whole of the listeners in the United Kingdom the salient points of his Budget. Similarly the American politicians: at the recent Naval Conference, held in London, utilised to an extraordinary degree the radio service for conveying their impressions of the negotiations, and the possibilities of a successful outcome, to the American people. So marked indeed was their predilection for discoursing over the air to the American people that the Press of the United States felt constrained to enter an emphatic protest against what they termed being side-tracked in that fashion. The answer of the politicians was that the facts of the negotiations were supplied to the Press, and that their radio talks served but as a personal commentary upon those facts, just as the newspaper representatives were at liberty to comment in their. own columns on the facts as given. Without entering into that argument, the point of moment is the manner in which an | event of international importance was placed before the democracy by meatis of radio. Here in New Zealand the effort: has been to preserve radio from the inroads of party politics. That objective maye be commended in so far as minor matters are concerned, but in majo matters we hold the view that radio offers such an advantage for conveying information to the people vitally concerned that our politicians and statesmen should, if they have faith in themselves and their cause, welcome the opportunity of utilising radio judiciously and intelligently for the information of the people. This privilege must be used with discrimination. So used the people would welcome it. Moreover, we think the time is speedily coming when they will demand it.