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Press, Volume LVI, Issue 16945, 21 September 1920, Page 6

The Legislative Council has never incurred the reproach of being "a talking shop.'' its debates occupy little space in the newspapers, and only a moderate space ; n "Hansard." This is to its credit, not only because it means a saving of time and expense, but also because it signifies that the Council is generally more sure-footed than the House. But the Council has its lapsc3 from graoe, and on occasion it goes to the pernicious extremo of silence when talk is really necessary. The Hon. W. H. Triggs referred to this on Friday last. "I am not sure," he said, "whether in our desire to be a strictly business house and not a talking shop, we do not err a little in the othea: direction." He mentioned as a case in point the Council's adoption, without a word of debate, of the new clause in the Marriage Law Amendment Bill, which has caused so much discussion. "In view of what has been said since," he added, "I am not sure whether a mistake was not made on that occasion, and whether, jf only for the information of the public, it would not have been better if some debate had taken place in regard to that question. Tho opinions expressed in Dunedin yesterday by Bishop Richards and Archdeacon Fitchett will no -doubt strengthen Mr Triggs's belief that the Council made a grievous error in thrusting tho new clause into the Bill without any discussion. The merits of the clause we shall not further discuss at present, but we invite the politicians to reflect seriously upon the issue -they have raised and to consider whether the methods pursued in the Legislature —or at any rate in the Council —ought not to be changed when they lead to a situation that provokes such vefy grave statements .from Anglican and Roman« Catholic dignitaries. Nobody I wishes to see the Legislative Council j become a. space-filler like, the House of Representatives, but we hope it will think twico it again omits to discharge its function of public debate and criticism.

People who remember the "river bank'' controversy of some time back will be interested to know that a somewhat similar controversy lately arose in London. The Hampton Urban Council has been disturbed by the inclination of young men and maidens to go lovemaking in pnnts and boats on the Thames, and it has complained to the Thames Conscrvancy Board about it. As a result of the complaint, tho chairman of the Board wrote a letter to the Press inviting tho public to report any specific cases of objectionable behaviour. "The Times" • promptly advised tho public to do nothing of the sort. The adoption of tho Board's suggestion, it said, might lead to blackmail, and "at the best to a malevolent spying none tho less mean because it is supposed to be in the interest of propriety." It is the public's duty, "The Times" urged, "to turn a blind eye on lovers." "They," it said, "are the worst judges of tho conduct of young men and maidens who distrust them most." At the meeting of the Conservators one member actually suggested that notices should bo exhibited to forbid embracing! Tho conclusion of "The Times" is that "our young people will still seek the green and kindly shade oi tho willows, or loiter in tho backwaters at dusk. It is tho immemorial way of life." It is, and why should it not be?

The report of the Works anc\ Traffic Committee presented at yesterday's meeting of the Tramway Board read the City Council an apparently muchneeded lesson in good manners. The point of tho committee's rebuke lay not so much in its statement of the extraordinary difficulty and delay it experienced in dragging from the Council an answer to a proposal to which one would think a competent local body could have replied in a, month —the actual period was ten months. That was bad enough. But the Tramway Board's Committee evidently regards as a worse offence against courtesy the action of the Council in referring publicly, by way of complaint, to matters of detail in the management of the tram traffic, when v there is in existence a joint committee of the Council and the Board, set up for the express purpose of considering matters of mutual interest, to which the matters complained of- could well have been relegated.. If the Council is going to | ignore that joint committee, the latter, I for all the good it will do, might just

as well go out of existence. We hope, however, that before doing anything hastily the Council will ponder over the quiet warning conveyed in the Works and Traffic Committee's final sentence, in which it remarks, in c-f-1 feet, that there are matters connected with the non-enforcement of traffic bylaws by the City Council, about which it could say a good deal were it not restrained by the hope that they may bo dealt with by the aforesaid joint committee. 6 The committee which lately took in hand tho movement to raise money in this district for the ''Save the Children" > fTund is to be congratulated upon it 9 vigour and upon the measure of success which has already rewarded its efforts. Realising that much valuable time has already been wasted, it has set to work in a most business-like way, and as a result, ti'ne first £10'J0 collected is to be remitted to London to-day. That amount should be multiplied more than ten times before the fund closes. The circular distributed yesterday through tho papers by the committee was one of the most appealing documents ever presented to the Canterbury public. Its i concise statement of the appalling effects of the famine in Eastern Europe and Asia Minor should touch every heart capable of sympathy for millions of hapless children suffering all tho tortures of cold and starvation. "Twenty shillings will clothe a child and feed ifc for a wtek." It is not) often, fortunately, that one can do much with so little.