JOHN ALEXANDER LEE

Radio Record, 19 June 1936, Page 6

JOHN ALEXANDER LEE

-In the Sun

Specially Written for the ... "Radio Record" by

CLYDE

CARR

M.P.

OHN A. LEE reminds me of my old "Boarding House Euclid." We used to define a landlady as J "a long, angular body that cannot be described but is equal to anything." But our landladies of old were sometimes slatternly and slouching, mostly cringing, often irate. Mr, Lee is almost as sleek as his hair. He dresses well, has an air of fearlessness that his war record would amply justify, and has a swinging gait, swinging from the right shoulder, his maimed wing being held as it were in reserve. Yet there is unmistakably something of the gamin about him. He is elusive, but rarely evasive. Indeed, there is a forthrightness about him that seldom fails to carry conviction. One hesitates, almost in fear, to go on with this, for one cannot describe the indescribable. And it is true of Jack that he cannot be described. It is also true that he is equal to anything. And one’s failure to do justice to this almost evanescent personality may lead to reprisals. Yor Mr. Lee is a seribe, too. And he has been known to dip his pen in gall and vitriol. To claim the immunity that friendship might offer would be cowardly, and probably vain, anyhow. He can be very assertive, overtly aggressive. Worst of all he seldom delays to mature his plan of attack. Such preparations and precautions are superfiuous. A wave of his good arm or even of what the wicked war has left of: the other, is sufficient to deploy all his forces, horse, foot and artillery, right, left and centre, in massed formation or in open. order, by battalions and by dragoons. ‘There is something written about those who long to wound yet fear to strike. That is not a bit true of him. He can be pitiless, and he is, , No other man that I know can arise in the House without preparation and be so effortlessly effective about almost nothing at all. He ean make anything of nothing. Inmediate and momentous creation he is muster of. He wins praise from the temperamentally antagonistic and unimaginative. Even when he is blowing off steam, never forget that steam is scalding. Lee is an egoist, a Wilde. a Whistler, 2 Frank Harris, yes, a Shaw. That was one reason why Shaw praised "The Children of the Poor." In the writer he found a kindred spirit, shamelessly all-self-

sufficient. And then it was that the anonymity of the writer and all that that involved was surrendered, cast into the flame of fame. Readers are referred to Stevenson’s poem, "A Por-. trait.’

Next we are to have "The Hunted." The final proofs are passed. One understands it is a sequel to "The Children of the Poor," portraying a further stage in an imaginative but not altogether imaginary autobiographical romance. This is an age of post-war realism, such realism as cannot ignore or avoid the sordid and squalid things of life in an imperfect but evolving and revolving world. It would almost appear that a book that ignores these things has little hope of publication to-day. We have the neap-tide of romance after, the flood-tide of romanticism. The foreshore is teal but it is none the less hideous. Stranded kelp and dead fish ate fit subjects for the naturalist. But there’ are lovély stranded seashells, too, which retain much of their beauty under the microscope. John A. Lee... He, member for Grey Lynn-the name of his constituency fits him like a glove-was born in Dunedin in 1891. In spite of war injuries, internal and external, and in spite of a restless spirit that must almost burn and sear the protesting flesh, he shuuld have many years ahead’ of him in which to consolidate the gains, political and literary, he has won. His position as Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Prime Minister must surely be a precursor to Oabinet rank ere long. "Who's Who" says he worked on farms, in factories, ete., until 1909. It does not say, but he does, that he "padded the hoof" from practically one end of New Zealand to the other, and slept under hedges and straw-stacks. That is t™e stuff of which real New Zealanders are made, with the heady brgath ¢y the soil in their noses, and winds that blow through bracke: and tussock in their hair. Men who have not worked, slept, dreamed, eaten and drunken under the open sky long enough to feel at home and familiar there have never known Zealandia as other than a foster-mother. In: the North Island he joined the Public Works Department. At the war he served with the N.Z.E.F., First Wellington Regiment, At Messines it was that he won his D.O.M. for conspicuous gallantry, and it was at Mailly Maillot that he lost his left arm. But returned soldiers do not tell of their exploits. His entrance to politics was perhaps less spectacular than his achievements therein since aud elsewhere. He contested a by-election for Auckland Wast in 1921 and was successful in winning the seat the next year. retaining it till 1928. In 1931 he defeated the late J. S. Fletcher for Grey Lynn. He has held executive positions in the Labour Party and the R.S.A. His appreciation of literature, including ‘the bizarre, is instinctive. He has lectured on war poetry over the air. When the present Government’s housing policy is put into effect, much of his preparatory handiwork will be seen. He

dazzling native ability, his future lies well to the sun. It is his own sup. Let us hope that it will shine more and more unto the perfect day. is an effective pamphleteer. A man

Next week’s character sketch of New Zealand political ‘figures will be of the Rev. Clyde Carr, writer of this series.