The Press THURSDAY, MARCH 3, 1938. Parliament Resumes

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22341, 3 March 1938, Page 10

The Press THURSDAY, MARCH 3, 1938. Parliament Resumes

Without the usual Address-in-Reply debate to occupy members, the Government will have to be ready at once to open and carry on its legislative programme. A few measures introduced before Christmas remain to be dealt with, including one to reconstitute the Greymouth Harbour Board, one to provide for the transfer from district to district of a hotel licence, an important bill dealing with public health administration, and a highly contentious measure to establish compulsory conditions for the employment of clerks of works. The Alsatian Dog Bill, if necessary, can be brought in to pass the time of the House agreeably while Ministers are busy. Of new legislation there are several indications. The Prime Minister has announced the Government's decision to develop the Onekaka iron deposits, and the bill to give effect to this decision is already being drafted. The changes in the British, Australian, Canadian, and foreign tariffs are certain to receive a good deal of attention. The Minister for Transport said a few days ago that the transport amendments he has been considering are now ready to go before the House; and some of them cut deep. There appears to be some prospect of an instalment of Mr Fraser's education reforms; and when the Prime Minister let it be known, last week, that the health insurance and superannuation proposals would be carried only through a stage of final investigation this session, he seemed to add that certain steps to " liberalise " the existing pensions scale and conditions would be taken at once. The business in sight is not extensive or difficult and it is, of course, as likely to be cut down as to be increased. The Government's decision not to proceed with its health and superannuation schemes until the final session of Parliament has vastly modified the prospects of this one. That decision was in many ways a wise one; but it is to be hoped that it will not mean the overcrowding of the pre-election session. If the Address-in-Reply debate—sure to be long drawn out—is to be followed then by the exacting health and superannuation bill, by the Budget and the Estimates, and by any other major measure, such as educational reform, it is not easy to believe that so arduous a programme would be carried through as it should be. If anything can be done to avoid or lessen the danger of such business being forced through, half discussed and half understood, every effort should be made to do it. The obvious course is for the Minister for Finance to give the country the benefit of an early Budget. If he brings down his financial proposals in April, he will achieve something highly desirable in itself. He will give trade and industry long notice of the demands they will have to meet at the end of the financial year. He will end the unreal procedure under which Parliament solemnly votes in the second half of the year the money that has been pouring out during the first. This travesty of Parliamentary control of finance should be discredited and discontinued. And in the present situation Mr Nash would, by budgeting early, give Parliament and the country a chance to consider the Budget and the health and superannuation bill with due care—a much better, chance than will be given if both are delayed until the election lies just ahead. A great deal has been made of the technical difficulty of preparing an early Budget in New Zealand; but the difficulty can and should be overcome. The special reasons for urging the effort to overcome it now are strong, and they reinforce the reasons that are always and normally valid. It may be suggested that the Budget could not be introduced in advance of the health and superannuation bill; but there is no need to suppose that the financial provisions of the bill will require to be accounted for in the Budget.