TOO EASILY PLEASED

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 203, 27 August 1943, Page 2

TOO EASILY PLEASED

THE House of Representatives, as is customary at the end .of a Parliament's term, spent an hour last night in listening to valedictory tributes. In the circumstances, seine such ceremony is natural, and it could be dignified and pleasing, but those who listened to -last night's performance could hardly have escaped a feeling of physical discomfort as they heard the flow of compliment so unrestrained, and, in great part, so insincere. The intention seemed to convey to an unsophisticated public the picture of a happy band of brothers who, though compelled by the rules of a game to say hard things on occasion, were all filled with goodwill and admiration for one another and all convinced that in the Parliament now ending New Zealand has had the best Government and the best Opposition it has ever had, or ever could have. It is hard to know why adult New Zealanders should be expected to heed such canting humbug. If it were not humbug, then they might "well ask why this mutual admiration society, with the country at war, could not produce a durable national Government. It is true that the political opposition of individuals is not incompatible with personal respect and even friendship, but when members protest their amity too much they invite the suspicion that Parliament has been little more than an arena for sham-fighting.

As to the quality cf the House, the judgment of posterity, and indeed, of tins generation, is likely to be as harsh as that of its members last night was indulgent. It was a House which/elected in peacetime had no particular qualification for guiding a couritrv in war and did not develop such qualifications as it had. Its members, however have a creditable record in military service. Perhaps most of all the elective Houses in the Parliaments of the Empire it supinely and needlessly yielded up its powers to the Executive. That Executive, in part composed of men never elected, and so .unable to answer for their actions in the elected House, made the vital decisions, and the House (acquainted of them in secret session), when it was too late to alter them—if it wished, endorsed them. The consequence of vital decisions relating to military commitments was that early this year nobody who spoke in a public debate was able to suggest how all the commitments could bo maintained after next March—and yet nobody was courageous enough to say that any should be modified. Such a situation—which so far as the public knows, persists to this day—could only have arisen in a House which in quality was too weak to assert its rights and play its due part in Parliamentary government.

This was the House, too, which, while countenancing continual appeals to the people to yield up their money for the war effort, has failed to insist on anything like an adequate scrutiny of the war expenditure. Not only that, but it has permitted the misuse of the censorship to conceal failures which were in part the consequences of its own actions. When the Auditor-General forced before public attention conditions which were, and some of which still are, notorious, the House, after a preliminary whitewashing by the Prime Minister of all concerned, referred the matter to a Committee for a second coat. The Committee did what was expected of it. That such a House should be so self-admiring ought to be surprising,' but it will not be to those who remember that, with hardly a dissentient, it once passed a law prolonging its life until 12 months after the. end of the war! At least it is consistent in its high opinion of itself. The electors' will, soon have an opportunity to show whether they share that opinion. If thej r do not they must elect men and women pledged to resist and reduce the encroachment of the Executive. Parliamentary government may survive with one of its Houses functioning only as a rubber-stamp; but two would be fatal.