The Press Tuesday, February 16, 1932. Government by Proxy.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20472, 16 February 1932, Page 8

The Press Tuesday, February 16, 1932. Government by Proxy.

One of lU~r George Lawn's random shots on Saturday night wa3 directed at the Parliamentary machine attempting to function as an economic machine; and it has often been fired before. But it has not often been fired at so exposed a target. Four professors have just been rushed to Wellington to examine an "economic " and budgetary position" which has already been examined by a Committee of the House, and which the Economy Commission lias included within the scope of its own enquiry. We have in fact seen so many Commissions and Committees and Boards that the Government, though it maintains the semblance of authority by requiring each group to report to it, has otherwise ceased to govern. The doctor has been called in to cure a dozen ailments; but he is not the man whom the people elected. Since 1929 the following Government tribunals have been appointed :

Economy Commission. Economic Committee (of the House). Economic Committee (of economists). Development of Industries Board. Unemployment Board (twice). Railway Board. Broadcasting Board. Select Committee on Education. Other Commissions promised, but not yet established, are: Commission on Local Body Expenditure. Committee on Education Costs. Some of these tribunals were made necessary by unforeseen ciroumstances, but others have been formed largely because they seemed to offer a convenient way of shelving inconvenient subjects. The Economists' Committee, for example, has primarily to decide the question of exchange, upon which the Government has already declared itself, and which Mr Forbes said only the other day rested entirely with the banks. The information to be gained from some of these reports, when they are presented, may furnish the matter for a liberal education; but who will read them, who will act upon them, and when? What has become of the report of the Select Committee on Education or the report of the Economic Committee of the House (since it was made the exouse for the Coalition) ? What has the Unemployment Board done that could not have been done without it, and what can the Development of Industries Board do that the Department of Industries and Commerce should not be' able to do? As the way to Hell is paved with good intentions, so, the cynio may argue, the path of Parliamentary procedure must be strewn with Commissions and Boards and their reports—reports which are recalled only when they have long fallen into disuse and it is found that the work of investigation has to be done all over again.-Further, they must all be paid for again, and for a proper reckoning their cost must be added to the price we pay for our House of 4 Representatives. It is one of the bad jokes of the depression that they should be multiplied most at a time when economy is the primary public interest; but New Zealand is not the only country so afflicted. In Great Britain, for instance, apart from such permanent bodies as the Economic Advisory Council, of which there are several, no fewer than 30 tribunals of varying status are now or have until very recently been at work enquiring into as many special problems of modern life. Some of them have been sitting since 1927, yet up to the present only two or three have issued any kind of report. They range from a Royal Commission to enquire into the laws relating to the sale and supply of intoxicating liquors to a Committee to discover how far, if at all, dust in cotton card-rooms is a cause of ill-health. While some of the problems under discussion are of considerable importance, it is not easy to get excited about the possible issue of enquiries into:

Records of Parliament from 1284 to 1832. Furunculosis in Fishes. Deep-diving Equipment. Folk Museums. Garden Cities. Agricultural Tied Cottages. The bills will be presented to the British tax-payer in due course; the cost so far is estimated at more than £50,000. While ostensibly these tribunals are the servants of democratic government, actually there is no doubt that they aro to some extent replacing democratic government. For although the New Zealand Parliament may claim the right to accept or reject the recommendations of such a tribunal as the Committee of Economists now sitting, in actual fact it has not the competence to criticise, since it has confessed its own failure to perform the task which it has delegated. Mr Lawn is right, if not original, in suggesting that the international, national, economic, industrial, and social problems of the day are proving l too complex to be solved by politicians at £405 a year. Unless we arrive speedily at some simple division of functions, economics going to economists and political problems only remaining for Parliament, we shall end with a dictatorship in which. Parliament will be left without real powers and without any higher prerogative.