THE POLITICAL PROGRAMME.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 49, 21 November 1907, Page 6

THE POLITICAL PROGRAMME.

For the third, and probably the last, time the Premier has announced the intentions of the Government with respect to the final stage of the session. Nothing that the Premier has said since he took office last year is comparable with his statement of yesterday afternoon in point of pleasantness to the ears of members, and, in their delight that Parliament is to be sent packing in fewer, days than can be cpunted on the fingers of one hand, they will almost be disinclined to quarrel very violently with even the unsatisfactory features of the programme yet to be negotiated. Mr. Massey declared on Tuesday that the public was heartily sick of the session, and would rejoice when prorogation ended the Government's opportunities for doing any further legislative mischief this year. That is probably true, and everybody will be grateful that the Premier can claim to have as much cause as had Warren Hastings to be astonished at his own moderation. Although the programme of Bills, to be gone on ; with comprises only nine items, some of which are well within the narrow limits of what is proper at this point of time, the same cannot be said of either of the measures relating to gambling and Native lands. The Gaming Bill is certain to provide bitter controversy, and with respect to the Native Land Bill it is too late to hope that anything can be effected by any criticism of its provisions. Nothing more sharply condemnatory than that can be said of the Premier's persistence with this important measure. After a long night's debate, in which strong reasons were advanced against the passage of the Bill, the sccond reading was agreed to by forty-two votes to so von. The Government majority, that is to say, has passed the stage of caring for anything except the will of the Ministry. With the long r.ecord of failure tn warn them against continuing the practice of making Native land legislation a subject for hurried discussion in a House too weary and too pressed for time to care what is happening; with the fact put plainly beforo tliem that tho Natives them*

selves have not properly considered the effects, nor even properly mastered the very contents, of the Bill; and with their eyes open to the Government's glaring bleach of its promise to make the Bill one of the early Bills .of the session—with all these incentives to legislative decency, the Government's majority has decided to assist the Ministry in rushing the Bill on to the Statute Book. Surely this is a very degradation of the functions of the Legislature. The Eire Brigades Bill is a measure brimful of contentiousness, but, as the Government has intimated that local bodies desiring exemption from the operation of the Bill be granted their desire, .much of the sting is taken from the proposals. Of the other seven Bills there is no occasion to say anything here. It will be observed that neither the Tramways Bill nor the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration' Act Amendment Bill is included in the Premier's programme, and for this the public will be grateful. The withdrawal of the Tramways Bill is a confession of the justice of the sweeping condemnations to which its vicious intention was everywhere subjected. With respect to the labour measure, the Government probably made up its mind long ago that it would be impossible to push through even a semi-exhausted House a Bill more heavily charged with contentious issues than almost any other proposal of the session. Nothing will be lost by its postponement, and it is regrettable that the same course was not taken with the Native Land Bill. Although, therefore, the programme'of the Premier is only deserving of this faint praise that it might have been worse, the session, when it does end, will be again maired with the repetition of the exhaustion tactics of the past decade.