The Dominion. MONDAY, MAT 8, 1911. THE INSOLENCE OF OFFICE.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 11111, 8 May 1911, Page 4

The Dominion. MONDAY, MAT 8, 1911. THE INSOLENCE OF OFFICE.

A very unpleasant exposure is made by the London correspondents ot the Ohristcburch Press'and other , papers regarding the invitation is- , sued by a committee of the British Parliament to members of the New Zealand Parliament in connection . with the Coronation celebrations. It will be recalled that for some inl explicable reason Sir. Joseph Ward and his colleagues surrounded the invitation with a secrecy that provoked at the time a great deal of adverse comment. The first news of the invitation came from Australia, it being announced that the Commonwealth Parliament had been invited to send a delegation of members to 'the Coronation. Sir Joseph Ward was then approached on the subject to ascertain if a similar invitation had been sent to the New Zealand Parliament. This was on October 6 of last year, and Sir Joszph Ward then stated: All the self-governing portions of the Empire lmyo boon invited to send a portion of their members to the Coronation. New Zealand has been asked to send eight, but the question has not yet been considered by Cabinet. This statement is quite plain and leaves no room for equivocation. Yet, on December !i, two months lato:, Sir Joseph Ward told Parliament, iu reply to a question: Ho might now say that no invitation had been received in respect to members of the. House to proceed to England. ]Ie was not at liberty to spcnlc upon a matter which had coma before him confidentially, but ho might say this: That after the present general election in England an invitation might come; and if it did come ho would feel it his duty to communicate that information to the House, and mov.ibers would easily understand that he was unable to say more. Of these two conflicting statements it is quite possible that the second U the correct one; but it is a little curious that the Commonwealth should have treated its communication as an invitation and made preparations accordingly, while Sin Joseph Wakd should have regarded the notification which he received ri.3_ merely a hint of something which might or might not follow. So the matter remained until February 27, when Sir Joseph Ward announced that he had at last received the invitation, which he said was dated London, February 24. ' The ! wording of the communication was to the effect that it was li a formal invitation to eight members of the Dominion Parliament. ,, "ft should be noted that the invitation was to eight members of the Dominion Parliament. Sik Joseph Ward, on receipt of this communication, telegraphed to every member of the House of Representatives asking each to state whether he would be able to take advantage of the invitation. On March 2 we drow the PimiE Minister's attention to the fact that the invitation was extended to members of Parliament—that is to say, to members of both Houses of the Legislature, and that he_ was putting a slight on the Legislative Council as well as ignoring the terms of the invitation by confining the selection of those to go to the Coronation to members of the House of Representatives. Our protest passed unheeded and we repeated it in still stronger terms on March 7, pointing out that the invitation came from a joint committee of both Houses of the British Parliament to both Houses of the New Zealand Parliament. But Sir Joseph Ward had already decided to censor the invitation—had, in fact, done so. He declined it on behalf of the Dominion Parliament, because only one member out of those communicated with was able to accept it. The Legislative Council was coolly and contemptuously ignored by him. This grossly improper assumption of a right to over-ride the wishes of those extending the invitation was not only in deplorable taste, but was an insult to a branch of the Legislature. What the would-be hosts of our Parliamentary repre-> sentatives thought of such conduct we cannot pretend to say, but it must have given them the idea that our code of manners is a very strange one and that we must bo curiously ignorant of the simplest forms of courtesy and straightdealing.

But it would seem that the Dominion was laid open to even greater ridicule and contempt in connection with this invitation, through the attitude adopted by Sir Joseph Waed. It appears that when the invitation was declined a paragraph was published in the London Times to the effect that the proximity of the general election and the fact that the New Zealand Government did not propose to pay the fares of the New Zealand representatives, were the main factors influencing the refusal of the invita : tion. In order to overcome these difficulties, so it is the British Parliamentary Committee suggested that the_ whole delegation should be comprised of members of the Legislative Council—the body which Sir Joseph Ward had persisted in ignoring—and the committee also offered to pay the cost of return passages to England. This generous offer—about which tho people of New Zealand have been kept in ignorance—tho Government is now stated to have declined on the ground of shortness of time to consider tho proposal and it added that there was no possibility of securing passages to reach London in time for the Coronation. The British Parliamentary Committee, so tho story of the correspondents runs, then cabled to Australia, secured the necessary steamer accommodation, and cabled again to the New Zealand Government naming the boat on which the New Zealand representatives could travel at tho coat .of the committee, Again t without

informing or consulting anyone, this invitation was declined by the- New Zealand Government. It is pretty obvious, from what has transpired, that Sir Joseph Ward was not very anxious to have the company in London of a party of New Zealand members of Parliament. Why? What had he to fear from their presence'? Was it that he felt they would be a clog on his freedom of speech in professing to voice the views of New Zealand on questions on which the public had never keen given a chance to express an opinion? Did _he fear that they would sec him in his Iruc perspective in London? We cannot say; but it must be plain to everyone that if the story told by the London correspondents is correctit comes from two independent agencies—then Sir Joseph Ward has once again taken it on himself to treat as his own personal concern what is actually the concern of the whole country—he has assumed a dictatorship which must arouse the resentment of every self-respecting citizen, and especially the resentment of those who properly recognise that the Prime Minister is the servant and not the master of the people of New Zealand. What right has he first of all to pretend that the invitation to both Houses of Parliament was an invitation to members of the House of representatives only; and still more important, what right has he to keep back from Parliament and the country communications which in the light of the statements now published it was his business to make public ? Those who recall the astounding confidential letter sent to newspaper editors at the time of the Dreadnought gift, and afterwards exposed in Parliament; the disappearance of important documents from Departmental files, such as .in the case of E. A. Smith, and in connection with the Hike charges; the reported suppression of important communications such as recorded in the case under review, may well wonder where these things are going to end. These discoveries of Ministerial methods are usually accidental—it is so difficult with a secretive Government and a terrorised Public Service to get even a glimpse behind the scenes—but the occasional insight that is obtained invariably leaves a very unpleasant impression as to the lengths to which the Ward Government is prepared to go in its efforts to retain office.