THE WORK OF LEGISLATION.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 51, 23 November 1907, Page 4

THE WORK OF LEGISLATION.

With the prospect that the session may end to-night, with no surety as to the measures to be discussed to-day, and with the certainty that in any case Parliament's ears are now deaf to outside criticism, a newspaper would be wasting its time in affect any longer the course of -this year's legislation. We should be failing in our duty, however, if we neglected to call the public's attention once more to the disgraceful travesty of parliamentary government that has been taking place during the last few clays, and in particular to a remarkable testimony to the deplorably improper ideas held in some quarters upon the canons of parliamentary government. The second reading'' debate on the Native Land Bill, occupied practically the whole of Tuesday's sitting of the House, and the second reading was agreed to in the early hours of Wednesday morning. l r or the greater part of the debate the attendance was extremely thin, and for all practical purposes the discussion, by reason of the exhaustion and indifference of overdriven members,, was of no value whatever. On. Wednesday, the Bill was con-

sidered' in committee, and, after another long sitting, was finally driven through without even the semblance of any real intention to give the details of the Bill proper consideration, or to seek for the amendments which sound legislation required, and which would assuredly have been made if this subject had been taken in hand earlier in the session. On Thursday the Gaming Bill was considered, and, despite the highly important issues involved, and the thorny contentiousness of the latter section of the measure, the whole thing was disposed of and passed before the' House rose yesterday morning. To claim that such driving tactics are consonant with sound legislative methods, or even with business-like expedition, is the height of absurdity. To some extent members are to blame for allowing their anxiety to be off to overcome their willingness to discharge their obligations, but even if members had not been impatient to end the session, it is doubtful whether, after the strain of five months, they are in any condition either to do their work thoroughly or to resist the pressure of a Government determined to gain its ends in fact inhereut in our parliamentary or the canons of sound legislation.

The Legislative Council protested on Wednesday against the driving tactics of the Government, and the protests drew from the Attorney-General a statement of a remarkable character. He suggested that, as the complaints concerning the end-of-the-session haste were perennial, " there must be a defect inherent in our Parliamentary system," but he held out no hope of cure. The fault, he said, lay with, " another place." After pointing out the increase in the number of local and personal Acts since 1875, he added:—

It was idle for Councillors to say that they must master every Bill. Certain Bills could not bo understood without a special training. A measure dealing, say, with reinsurance would require a study of half a lifetime to master it. They therefore had to take things on trust, and assume that the oxperts had given their best thoughts to the matter, and that tho Law Draftsman had done his duty. ' Ho asked Councillors to be frank with themselves, and not protend that they were capable of mastering every Bill as fully as its author.

If this means anything, it means that Parliament should abrogate its functions. It means also that the AttorneyGeneral denies that there is any real sincerity in the discussions of Parliament, any usefulness in the revising chamber, or anything but hyprocrisy in the pretence that Parliament moulds the legislation of the country.! If Dr. Findlay were logical, he would have gone on to urge that the whole business. of legislation should be left to the Law Draftsman acting under the orders of Cabinet. "What prospect of reform can there be when a responsible Minister, takes such a view of the duties of the Legislative Council? He suggested that " the remedy they wanted was a Bill to reform the House of Representatives." Is not the obvious remedy to be found in; a determination by the Council that, whatever the House may do, the work of revision at any rate will not be ''scamped"?'' Reform of the House will be useless if the doctrine is to rule thjat the Council is to take the Bills on trust. The Attor-ney-General has been usgtEul in lifting the veil from the secret views of the Government on more than one occasion already. If his extraordinary advocacy of the abandonment by the Council of its duty of criticism opens the public's eyes to the .gross abuses fostered under existing methods, he will have done a real public service.