The Press SATURDAY, MARCH 5, 1938. Till Next Session

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22343, 5 March 1938, Page 16

The Press SATURDAY, MARCH 5, 1938. Till Next Session

In an interview reported yesterday morning the Prime Minister expressed his determination to end the present session of Parliament as soon as possible. . That may be in about three weeks. " Anything that can stand in the mean"time," he said, "will have to do so." His given reason is a curiously inadequate one: he thinks that members are entitled to a fair recess before being called back to discuss the Government's national health and superannuation proposals.*: Their immediate programme, therefore, is to be confined to pensions amendments, the Onekaka iron industry bill, a miscellaneous finance bill, another to remove "urgent taxation anomalies," and perhaps the education bill, though it will not be proceeded with. Even the transport amendments, which Mr Semple said last week were ready and which he regards as important, are to be deferred, because members must rest before they grapple with health insurance and superannuation. It almost seems as if Mr Savage does not realise how heavily he threatens to overload the pre-election session, in which it is notoriously hard to settle members to continuous and careful work. The Prime Minister speaks as though the health and superannuation measure were the only formidable one to which the House will have to apply itself. The truth is very different. In addition, there is now to be the transport bill; the education bill will be an elaborate and far-reaching measure, the most important of its kind for many years; there will be the last Budget of this Parliament and the last set of Estimates, notably the public works estimates; and proceedings will begin with an Address-in-Reply debate that will, and should, range over all the issues between the Government and the Opposition and engage the full strength of both. Besides, no small body of other legislation is to be considered as certain or probable to be brought down; and the volume of routine business will be heavy. Some of it will be of more than ordinary significance and will, or should, be thoroughly debated. For example, the reports of the major departments—Public Works, Railways, Transport, Labour—will this year have the significance of the latest official evidence upon the objects and results of Labour policy. No student of politics can have the smallest doubt that a pre-election session, loaded as this one is destined to be, will be a session of scamped work and failure. Neither side of the House will be able to do its duty. The astonishing and disturbing fact is that to run into this Parliamentary turmoil appears to be the Prime Minister's set purpose, even if it is a blind one. "Anything that can stand in the meantime": it threatens such a shocking congestion of political business as every effort should be made to avoid. It is not too late for the Prime Minister and his colleagues to take a wiser view. Every piece of legislation which can.be dealt with before the recess should be brought down. If Mr Nash, by gun, drum, trumpet, blunderbuss, and thunder, can terrorise the Treasury into letting him produce an April Budget, he will have made the greatest possible single contribution towards the efficient conduct of the country's business. Short of that miracle, all other business that can be done now should be done, to better the chance of doing well what must be done later and last. There can be no excuse for arrangements that reduce the chance to nothing.