The Press Wednesday, May 11, 1932. The Session.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20543, 11 May 1932, Page 10

The Press Wednesday, May 11, 1932. The Session.

The emergency session of Parliament, which closed last night, will not soon ho forgotten. It -was called to deal with a situation which proved that previous measures, though some had thought them unnecessarily severe,, had in fact been too iimid and tentative; for the financial year closed with a heavy uefieit and another, more than three times as large, was in prospect. The Government was anned with the results of the two most searching enquiries yet made into the principles that should guide Dominion finance and economy and into the possibilities of immediate saving; and the achievement of the session, measured by the Budget, has been to reduce the prospective deficit by three-quarters, through economies and adjustments worth £4,000,000 and the use of reserves to the extent of £2,200,000. The announcement of this last step, as an alternative to carrying out the earlier intention of finding the same sum by means of new taxation, completed in essentials the anticipation of the Budget to come down next session and relieved taxpayers from what would have been a position either of dangerous uncertainty or of certain danger; and this choice has been opposed only by Labour critics who would rather say stupid and unjust things than lose the chance of doing the Government some mischief. But the work of the session has gone far beyond the limits of the Budget. The financial basis and the methods of unemployment relief have been thoroughly reorganised. The industrial law of the Dominion has been radically changed by the neAv Conciliation and Arbitration Act, the full effect of which will become known only through experience. The principle introduced in the original Mortgagors Relief Act has been extended, until there is now scarcely any contractual obligation which has not been revised by statute or is not subject to revision by the Courts. In these measures and in the miscellaneous Finance Act the Govei'nment has acquitted itself of the responsibility for which the Coalition' was formed and which only a Coalition, in the circumstances, was strong enough to face. \ That it has done wholly well cannot be said; but there is no need now to repeat criticisms which we have made perfectly clear. Though it has made mistakes of more than one kind, recognisable at sight, and though the future may expose others, its record in the last few weeks is substantially that of an honest, determined, systematic, and well directed effort to rescue the country from economic disaster. If it does not everywhere receive the credit which it has earned by that effort, this will surprise or disappoint nobody who realises that selfish and thoughtless people will always abuse or desert a Government which does not shelter them at the expense of others. But it is necessary to say that the Labour Party's record during the session compares very ill with the Government's, and that it has most unfairly exploited opportunities to do the Government harm. Its opposition has scarcely ever been anything but intemperate, ungenerous, unhelpful, abusive, and provocative; and if any fresh evidence of Labour's total incapacity to govern were required, it would be found in the cold print of the Opposition speeches.