PARTY GOVERNMENT

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 75, 21 December 1928, Page 9

PARTY GOVERNMENT

Sir, —The following are a lew considerations of great practical importance, which call tor immediate attention in New Zealand under the present complex yet favourable political situation. As a solution ot the debacle 1 suggest:— (1) The immediate and utter abolition of party Government, which almost entirely subverts the principles of democracy and is a serious hindrance to industrial, social and national reform and prosperity. (2) Preferential and universal postal voting should be substituted for the present cumbersome and costly electoral system. (3) Each candidate for Parliament should be over 40 years of age and experienced in municipal government. (4) Election should be made by post, and the results announced on one day, through the Postmaster-General as universal scrutineer, thus obviating much expense and loss of time and productive labour. (5) Every measure should be considered on its own merits after being provisionally printed officially and after being exopunded in a single introductory speech by its sponsor before the House. (6) Every individual M.P. should have a right to bring forward auy measure he thinks fit, but only at certain stated times during each Parliamentary session. (7) After the provisions of his Bill have been explained before the House, the whole House should decide by ballot whether it is a true Bill which shall be debated in detail during the session in progress and at what date and hour. (8) The constitution of the Cabinet should be decided upon by a vote of the whole House at the commencement of each Parliamentary session, including even the appointment of Prime Minister. (9) Cliques, combinations and caucuses among members in the precincts of the House affecting the fate of any particular Bill or measure should be declared illegal. (10) No Cabinet Minister should be allowed to hold more thau one portfolio of office. (11) There should be ten or twelve Cabinet Ministers, plus the Prime Minister as convenor and president. (12) No newspapers or magazines should, be permitted to publish an unauthorised Parliamentary report, while every Bill and speech before the House should be reported in substance. Under such a system party Government and factions would be reduced to a minimum. Individuals would be mainly responsible for the merits and fate of measures, while Cabinet Ministers would be as free and independent as men on a jury. The Prime Minister would, of course, be foreman and chairman, ex officio, with liberty to delegate duties to other members of the Cabinet. The best available men would be chosen for Cabinet rank, irrespective of parly interests, past or present; and every measure would be dealt with, accepted or rejected, on its intrinsic merits. The ■Speaker of the House is necessarily neutral as to party politics even at present. Class consciousness would thus be practically killed in the House and in the country, and political hypocrisy would no longer be able to shelter behind ambiguous party names. To bring about such a system of genuine democracy it would only be necessary to sink individual fads and party prejudices a very little more than has to be done at present to have any stable and workable Government. Stonewalling tactics would automatically become needless and ridiculous. Truly representative Government would begin to exist, whereas half of the people’s elected representatives under the crude conventional system, and frequently all but a handful on all sides, are perpetually tonguetied. many being victims of upstart dictators, noted chiefly for the gift of tongue, self-conceit and pushing impudence and having the command of capital or else of common funds wrung from productive workers. Sectarianism generally and lawlessness would receive the rebuke of example and moral reprobation in nil social circles and civil functions. The clamour for office and for political ascendency would he virtually ended, and in all things the good of the Dominion and Empire would be the supremo motive to both individual activity and co-operative reform. . , , England and other countries have, and even this Dominion has, prospered in the past in spite of and not aS the result of party Government and wrangling in the supreme Legislature. Such rabid partisanship is irrational as well as unsocial. It invariably inhibits free and full discussion and tends more and more to evoke animosity nnd to.produce practical paralysis, while the general communitv has to look on helplessly without the slightest hope of redress or amelioration. Many countries throughout the world are even at this moment face to face with a virtual deadlock directly traceable to the rival wranglings of political parties. Vicious internal divisions and despotisms are inevitably generated, fatal alike to freedom and progress, and in all Countries the old party system stands discredited to-day as. a relic of barbaric ignorance and tentative experiment. It will be advocated by no future political economist. As practised and generally understood in our times the verdict of history is dead against it. It invariably tends to provoke discontent and' reekless revolution, and its natural climax is an autocratic dictatorship which rides rough shod over subordinate officials and the petitions of the public. , , , The unnatural attempt to conduct democratic Government under the political party system has always and everywhere failed, but no valid reason against the non-party system, I suggest, has ever been forthcoming. There can be nothing against it but preiudice. selfish egotism, obstinnnev and blind adherence to custom. It is both desirable and nracticable, if only it is given a reasonable chance ‘‘Where there’s' a will there’s a way, and the growing needs of the country are calling for it. but Nature herself has declared plainly that chaotic combinations. which have no unitv of spirit and system, nre self-contrndietions which won’t work well. There never was. and prnbpblv never will be. fl more natural nnd fnvnurnble opportunity in New, Zealand than the present fnr th* 1 abolition, rnmn and stumn. Party Government, or for «ettin? the Knmire fltid the world a snlutnry exnrrnle of progressive pohtienl and social reform, seeing that Messrs.

Coates, Ward, Forbes and Holland, with the majority of their admirers and acolytes, all alike claim to be democrats (some more and others less), and the main differences between them are not in principle but in regard to methods and minor details; these in their outworking will spontaneously readjust and rectify themselves, and this system would be not merely a coalition of discordant factors but a new creation guided and guarded by some of the brightest brains in the land. . , , Anyhow, all parties and people are entitled to some proportion bf representation in Parliament,. including even the smallest minority, which in the past has been practically disfranchised and forced against its will to fight for natural rights and political freedom and privilege. ■ One false step at the present political crisis may lead to general ruin, whereas a wiselv reconstructive procedure may contribute largely to political, social and national regeneration. is one of vour correspondents has recently said: “This is a time to remember Joseph Chamberlains clarion call to ‘think Imperially,’ and think in terms 0, ,h, - Nelson, December 5.