Evening Post. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1898. THE BUSINESS OF PARLIAMENT.

Evening Post, Volume LVI, Issue 75, 26 September 1898, Page 4

Evening Post. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1898. THE BUSINESS OF PARLIAMENT.

Parliament last week indulged in one of the most determined stonewalls in the history of our representative institutions. The intervention of Sunday alone suspended hostilities, and the debate is to be resumed at 7.30 to-night. The situation is a most unfortunate one, and it is to be hoped that when members reassemble to-night a more conciliatory spirit will prevail. Saturday's discussion was avowedly a piece of obstruction, and no real progress with the Old Age Pensions Bill was made after 2 o'clock that morning. Up till that time the debate had been reasonable enough on the whole; and, although every paragraph of the measure was carefully criticised, there were no signs of deliberate aud organised

pfforts to delay business. The Premier, however, seems to have issued a mandate to his followers to "sit tight and vote straight," in other words, "Don't try to amend the Bill, but drive it through by the brute force of our majority." Thus he obstinately refused to report progress iv the early hours of Saturday morning, and insisted upon a weary House going on with its work long after the time when members had passed the limits of physical fitness for their task. The Opposition refused to be driven iv this way, and organised a deliberate stonewall in order to carry the two points for which it was contending — namely, the right to criticise and amend the important measure before fclie House, and the right of members to some consideration as to the hours they were required to work. With both these aims the people of the colony should be in sympathy, and, if obstruction is ever justifiable, it would certainly seem to be so in this case. The fact that it had to be resorted to shows the Premier's inability to lead the House. So long as he had an overwhelming and docile majority at his back he could, by hectoring and brute force, carry out his intentions, but now that he has to face a strong Opposition, combined with disaffection in his own Party, he seems to have lost his head, and with it the control of Parliament. The tactics he has adopted are not unlikely to lead to repeated deadlocks such as the country has been edified with during the past week, and the chance of getting even an amended Old Age Pensions 1 Bill on the Statute Book grows more and more remote. If the present Bill is not to he amended, then it is doubtful whether it would not be best to let it die a natural death. Its faults are of such a flagrant nature that the colony would assuredty find it a grievous incubus, aud with the Premier's orders ringing in their ears it is unlikely that the Ministerial majority will permit any of those radical alterations that are so patently needed. The Government's majority on the last few divisions has been somewhat precarious, and it is open to question whether the Premier's attitude will not end in alienating still more of his followers. Such wrangles lasting over long hours are scarcely creditable to our Parliamentary institutions, and unless the business of the country is gone on with in a more rational way, the people of the colony will soon demand a change of leadership or of methods. The Left Wing, which supported the Opposition in its demands for reasonable rest and fair criticism of the Bill, is apparently as anxious to put a workable peusions scheme on the Statute-book as any of the blind followers of the Premier. The little band of independents who make up fchjs Party evidently desires to carry the measure this session after it has been amended in the directions already indicated, and if the Premier had proved reasonable iv his demands upon the forbearance of the House, he would almost certainly have had a large majority ready to help him in carrying his Bill. By "his tactless attempts to browbeat members he has roused a spirit of opposition that will jeopardise the measure and has already led to scenes which have not enhanced the credit of our General Assembly. The importance of the measure before the House is scarcely realised by those who can talk of forcing it through without full and adequate discussion. Su"ely we have had quite enough, experience of crude legislation during recent years to justify us in expecting Parliament to give the minutest attention in Committee to all measures of importance. For the Premier of the colony to resent, as Mr. Seddon does, this close criticism of the Bills he submits to the House is quite an anomaly, and naturally turns those who would be candid critics into determined opponents. Obstruction there has been during the last week, but it was neither aimless, nor unnecessary, and if it teaches the Premier to respect the comfort of members and the right of the people's representatives to free criticism it will not have been in vain.