The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. SATURDAY, MAY 26, 1928. GOVERNMENT AND FREEDOM.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 123, 26 May 1928, Page 8

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

SATURDAY, MAY 26, 1928. GOVERNMENT AND FREEDOM.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance t And the good that toe can da.

The "New® Zealand Law Journal" deserves public recognition for reprinting at length the paper read by Mr. H. G. Wright to the members of the Legal Conference at Christchurch a few weeks ago. The subject of the paper was "The Present Trend of Legislation Viewed from a Constitutional Standpoint,' and Mr. Wright's purpose was to indicate the extent to which, both here and at Home, there are tendencies at work which encroach constantly upon the privileges of Parliament and the rights of the people. We noticed Mr. Wright's paper when it was first read, but the matters it deals with are so extremely important that we welcome its publication in fuller form.

There are certain principles fundamental to our Constitution on which our political rights and privileges are based, and these, to quote Mr. Wright, "have placed the English nation as regards personal freedom and legal liberty above all other civilised nations, and have made it at once the envy and admiration of the rest of the world." Now these principles, Mr. Wright points out, are exposed to danger in three distinct ways—when matters that should be determined by Courts of Law are left to the discretion of Ministers and Departmental officials; when certain Ministerial or Departmental powers and actions are accepted as "final and binding and not to be questioned in a Court of Law"; and when "regulations having the fcrce of law" are issued in the form of Orders-in-Council. " All these various invasions of Parliamentary and public rights can be illustrated copiously from the recent constitutional history of Britain and of New Zealand.

Before the -war such high authorities as Professor Dicey and Lord Cozens-Hardy (Master of the Rolls) pointed to these tendencies, and warned Parliament and the people of the dangers thatfthey involve. During j the war constitutional methods of government were largely superseded on sufficiently plausible grounds. What Mr. Wright aptly terms "the tenacity of the State official for retaining powers granted to him long after they have outlived their usefulness" may aceount for the retention of this bureaucratic authority, Loth here and at Home, subsequent' to the coming of peace. But an even graver threat to constitutional liberty is the steady growth of "Government by Order-in-Gouncil," which in Britain as in New Zealand has in recent years assumed such dimensions as to arouse the most serious apprehension and to induce such distinguished jurists as Mr. Justice Parry, Sir Lyndon Macassey, r :d Lord Chief Justice Hewart to protest emphatically against the whole system. 4v , - - ■/

As Dicey and all other authorities on the subject have maintained, a distinctive feature of the British Constitution is "the line of demarcation between the Executive and the Magistracy." Through lack of this distinction bureaucratic tyranny has been established in an almost impregnable position in most European countries; and such "delegation of legislative power" to departmental officials is absolutely incompatible with the maintenance of those rights and liberties which have made the British nation what it is to-day. But while these baneful tendencies are manifesting themselves clearly enough at Home, they are naturally more dangerous here, beeau-i of the wider activities in which the State hers engages, and the more varied responsibilities which it assumes. It would take more space than we can command to from the recent experiences of the people of New Zealand, the growth of bureaucratic despotism, the substitution of departmental authority for the decisions of Courts and judges, and the wide extension of 'government by Order-in-Council. But it would b<± easy to prove that all Mr. Wright's contentions are supported by conclusive evidence, and he has performed an important public service by emphasising the gravity of this menace to our traditional rights and liberties.