No Ivory Tower

—I am a Socialist. I am a trade unionist. Unlike Mr. Gamby, however, I don't much care whether I'm Prime Minister, or not.

Even more unlike Mr. Gamby, I do not suffer from, on the one hand, contempt for my fellow man, or the type of crass ignorance which leads me into making sweeping statements about groups of people of whom I know nothing; furthermore, about whom, owing to the contempt mentioned above, I am likely to learn nothing.

In the first place, I humbly proffer myself, as a member of my union's Board of Management and a delegate to the Wellington Trades Council as having some hand in "Labour Party policy making." (I have been secretary and treasurer of the Socialist Club.

The L.P. candidate for Patea in the November elections has also been a committee member. There is a member of the Labour Party's Wellington Co-ordinating Committee who was on the committee for some years. I could cite others, too (Bob Tizard, M.P. for Tamaki, was present from A.U.C. at a meeting of delegates from Labour Clubs within N.Z.U.S.A. which I attended from Victoria, some years back.) This leads on to my next point that proves Mr. Gamby's ignorance further. To insist that (a) the working class thinks of nothing but refrigerators and washing machines and (b) that it's leadership is composed of nothing but old, embittered men, merely tells me that Mr. Gamby has never bothered to meet any workers. I could give Mr. Gamby examples of faulty leadership, drawn from experience, and not from the leader writers of "Freedom" or the "Dominion", but I occupy my time with trying to right any wrongs, not complaining.

Try again, Mr. Gamby. Think as you please, of course, but, until your ideas change, do not label those thoughts "socialist". My opinion of those thoughts has been very well expressed by a more able writer than myself, as "didactic, pompous, platitudinous, sententious, diffuse, verbose, periphrastic, pleonastic, pharisaical, casuistic—and wrong."

Cassandra, of the "Daily Mirror" was referring to John Foster Dulles, but I find the resemblance most striking.