Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1903. PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume xxi, Issue 6077, 25 September 1903, Page 2

Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1903. PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE.

Parliament is presenting an anything, but edifying spectacle to the country with its late sittings extending far into the early morning hours, and an occasional all night sitting added. Is it for the good of the country that highly important measures and the work of the great Departments of the State should be reviewed, when the estimates are under discussion, at hours when the physical and intellectual activities of members are bound to be more or less exhausted ? There may be important work before Parliament —legislation which it is bound to undertake in the best interests of the colony—but surely there can be no excuse for the break-neck speed at which some measures aro rushed through both Houses. Nor can there be any real justification for the demands, made upon members of the Lower House, to enter upon important discussions affecting the welfare of the State after the midnight hour. To 1 members of Parliament themselves, there may not be any very serious objection to the business of the country being conducted in the fashion now obtaining. But to those who have any real concern for the well, being of our representative institutions, it ( must always appear grotesque that, in a. country which has adopted an eight hours' system for all classes of labour, and which demands that business premises shall Only be open within certain hours, our legislators should attempt that which the laws of, the land exjpressly prohibit on the part of all other workers. If Parliament acted con sistently, and in the spirit of its p?st legislation, it would confine its business to the working hours of the day, and not exhiiust its own powers, and, those of the small army of officials, attendants, and pressmen ; it keeps employed, in the fashion, which now nightly obtains. In South Australia,] where the Labour members couut for, a good | deal, the business of Parliameut is coufined to reasonable hoars.. The House of Assembly (the People's Chamber) rises by 11 o'clock 1 it latest, and all night sittings of Parlia- j ment are consequently unknown. The! change has baen brought about by tho j Labour members, not merely in their own interests, but in the higher interests of the State, and the new pi in certainly works j well, for South Australian legislation is as well ordered as that; of any of the other itates. It would be infinitely better to similarly confine the labours of our Parliament to the working hours of the lay, even if the length of the session had to be exteaded for a month or so. • Mambers are paid for their services and the State, is •aatitled to their very best labours; consequently such siitingsi as those of Friday should neither be necessary noe possible.; The House had be«n keeping late hours i during the whole of tin week and on Friday morning, when the Standing Orders were under roview, members were anxious to j *et home to bed. But the Premier wanted to get the Standing Orders through, and so he offered to let members home enrly on Friday nighjb, if they stuck to the business j before them and finished off the new rule? of procedure. The offer was aecgpfeJ and I the House rose at 4 a.m., to resume again-i it 2.30 p.m., the evening sitting being igain extended beyond the midnight hour. At twenty minutes to two on Saturday morning the House had finished with j the estimates for th« Department of Vgriouiture, and the Premier, was reminded of feu promise and asked to, allow the House to adjourn, H«t Mr^ Seddon denied having promised to be more than "reasonable," and then proceeded to show, from his own standpoint, that it was. " reasonable " to expect the House to dis-1 pose of the rajtway departmental estimates before adjourning. And thus, at twenty minutes to two a.m., the House entered upon tha Goaß^deration of, estimates involving an expenditure of <)W £1,300,000, despite the protests ef $h& leader of the Opposition, and of even some Government su^orters. And "while some ten or a dozen members set themselves to discuss the railway expeiiditow, ? tiw Government supporters composed themselves for tne' night, sleeping comfortably on their benches until such times as they were awakened for the divisions. The House was thus forced to sit through till twenty minutes to eight a.m., the whole fitting being a mere travesty of representative Government and manifestly calculated to bring Parliament itself into contempt.