The Dominion. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1911. BETRAYAL OF THE PUBLIC INTEREST.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1261, 17 October 1911, Page 4

The Dominion. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1911. BETRAYAL OF THE PUBLIC INTEREST.

In tho House yesterday that Standing Order .was invoked which enables the Government to push any Bill, or many Bills, through all of its, or their, stages at one sitting. Tho public is no doubt aware of what this means; but since a great many newspapers have protested for many years against this method of legislation—if we may use that phrase of something that has no reason or method, and that produces ukases rather than legislation in the proper sense—we must suppose that the public has not bad the full effect of legislation by exhaustion brought home to them. The three measures at the head of yesterday's Order Paper are quite now; members knew nothing of their details—and it is their details that are all important— until a few days ago, and they have been fully occupied with other business since that time. Yet, if the Government had chosen—and in tho next few days it will choose, in respect of other measures equally new and unconsidered—it could have passed these Bills through their second readings, through _ Committee, and through their third readings. That is to say, at the present moment the Government can bring down any Bill whatever without any notice, at any timo of the night or morning, and force it into law before the Houso rises next day. Theoretically, of course, it will not be law, since •it will require to bo dealt with by tho Legislative Council, but everybody knows—even the Government has ceased to deny—that as a deliberative body the Legislative Council has practically ceased to exist. It is curious, and it is deplorable, that while everybody is heartily sick of the Legislative Council as at present constituted, and nearly everybody knows it for a mere machine for the registration of the Government's decrees, few people realise that the House itself, in the List days of any session, is just as indifferent to its duty and to the public interest.

The fact that years of protest against the end-of-thc-sessiqn rush have becu unavailing renders all fclio more necessary a continuance of the campaign against a great national scandal. The first months of the session, during which members arc able and willing to spend time considering the details, as well as the general principles, of Bills, are deliberately wasted. The Government withholds its proposals, and encourages its followers to talk, and the House rises quite early, night after night. Then, when these months have been wasted, and mombcrs arc weary of the ses- ! sion, and eager for a change and a [return to their homos, the Govern-

ment brings on its most important proposals, and forces the House- to pass them'without proper discussion. The Ministerialists who have in the early part of the session displayed such an anxiety to talk about 'nothing that they follow each other in a series of long and valueless speeches to the llanaard reporters suddenly lapse into taciturnity, and into an impatience of discussion that shows itself in irritable cries for a division when some member of the Opposition, weary of tho session but unable to see errors committed in silence, is criticising any Bill. All of this, or the substance of it, has been said over and over again for years by every independent newspaper in New Zealand. The truth of it is manifest to everyone who can see the absurdity and the dishonesty of giving the House practically nothing to do in the months when members arc fresh, and forcing masses of new and unconsidcredlegislative proposals down the House's throat when most members are too weary or too indifferent to know or care what they are doing. It is in the last days of the session that the '"'jobs" are perpetrated and the errors made that irritate and injure the public. And the evil is made possible by the Standing Orders that permit Bills to be rushed through all their stages at one sitting and allow the House to begin on a now Eill after midnight. Ii both of these manifestly wrong practices were abolished, a great reform would bo accomplished, and a reform to which nobody could object without .pleading guilty to the charge of wanting the laws of the country to be the unamended and unconsidered ideas of the party in power.

_ Even in the early stages of tho ses-1 Eton, when membsis arc fresh, and I have no special incentive to scamp | their work, >it would be wrong to j allow any ordinary Bill to pass j through all its stages. But this is: just the time when the House can- \ not, or at any rate does not and i would not, dispose of a Eill at one j fitting, and when nothing new must i>2 brought on for discussion after half-past twelve. It is not until members arc bored and impatient, thoroughly sick of work, of the fight of each otl:;r. and of the unhealthy conditions of Parliamentary life, and very an::ious—in election year abnormally anxious—to get ; away from Well region, that they are permitted to do what a couple of months earlier they might be able and willing to do satisfactorily, but what in the last days of the session (hoy arc neither able nor willing to do with any- satisfaction to themsolves or to the country. The Bills at tho head of the Order Paper yesterday may have been good in principle, but they involved large increases in the public expenditure. Obviously, it is very necessary that, they should receive the most careful scrutiny, not only because large additions to the national expenditure should bo considered very seriously at all times, but also because such serious mistakes can l>2 made in Bills that arc good enough in principle as will make them extremely undesirable in their practical results.. During the next few days we shall we the House parsing all sorts of measures, and voting all sorts of expenditure, without any criticism beyond what the Opposition will bo able to supply. The Government can propose anything it chooses, bringing in its Bill, if it likes, at two in tho morning—a Bill that nobody has seen, or that may never have been mentioned—and it will be able, unless the Opposition can stop it by r.hc:;r force of obstruction, to pass I that Bill into law next day. Into I law—because the Legislative Council I has ceased to exist as a check upon the House. This outrageous scandal, this tragic farce of end-of-the-scssion legislation, could be abolished by a revision of the Standing Orders. If the Government wished to provide that tho public interest should be remembered in Parliament at tho end of the session, it would have long age so amended the Standing Orders as to make the scandal impossible.