The Auckland Star WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 27, 1934. PARLIAMENT'S TASKS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 150, 27 June 1934, Page 6

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

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 27, 1934. PARLIAMENT'S TASKS.

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

The session that opens to-morrow presents to the Government and to members a programme of problems that should deter everybody from time-wasting and seeking party advantage. The proposals that the Government will bring down based on the report of the Tariff Commission are awaited with lively interest. They may be the foundation of very important enonomic changes and developments. At present uncertainty about the tariff is hampering business. Neither the importer nor the manufacturer knows what the morrow will bring, and the situation is complicated by the state and prospects of exchange. The high exchange rate is a measure of protection, so if the Government reduces Customs duties, and at the same time lowers the exchange rate, some local manufacturers will be hard hit. There will probably be a good deal of discussion on the exchange question itself, and one of the first actions of the Government should bo to present to Parliament a full statement of the effects of this policy and its probable duration. Mr. Coates disputes calculations made as to these effects, but ho does not give the correcting information. It has been estimated that the high exchange is costing, or will cost, the country more than the benefits received, and the people are entitled to know the facts. The report of the Dairy Commission may involve legislative action of great moment. This country may be at the beginning of a new era, when ideas of economic planning and control will have to be tried, however much they may run counter to old convictions. Then there are large and difficult questions like the provision of work for the unemployed, a matter on which imagination and ideas have not played freely; reorganisation of local government, a reform long overdue; and putting the State's superannuation funds on a sound footing. If at the beginning of the session business is not ready for the House, and consequently weeks are spent upon the useless Address-in-Reply debate, that will be the Government's fault, but members should realise that the country will blame Parliament as a whole. The people are becoming more and more impatient of this sort of thing in hard and critical times, and the status of Parliament in the public mind has steadily declined. Members have now another opportunity of justifying democracy.