Evening Post. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1918. LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL REFORM

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 137, 6 December 1918, Page 6

Evening Post. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1918. LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL REFORM

The Legislative Council Amendment Bill, which had. previously been, passed by the Council itself, was put through all its crucial stages by the House last night. As there was not a great amount of controversial matter in the Bill, members took the opportunity of discussing some interesting but irrelevant points, one of which was incorporated in the Bill. Though the Speaker ruled against Mr. Massey's contention that Mr. M'Combs's amendment qualifying women to sjt in Parliament was foreign to the scope of the Bill, it is difficult to see how on what logical ground a clause affecting the constitution of the jtouse was held to be relevant to a, measure which was solely concerned with the Council. That one should have to look in a. Legislative Council Bill amendment for women's right of election to the House of Representatives is an absurdity which if as palpable to the commonsense of the layman as to the logic of the lawyer. It ie certainly strange that a Legislature which admitted women to the Parliamentary franohise in 1893 should have waited twenty-five years before .giving them the right to sit in the House, Mid then should have conferred it in tliis incidental, slipshod, and freakish fashion after the Parliament of the United Kingdom had led tho way. In its strictly legitimate application ifche new clause may perhaps be of' more immediate value than in its wider aspect, ft is not. likely that many women of the kind best qualified to adorn and strengthen public life will be willing to face the turmoil of a popular election under existing conditions, but it would' be an insult to the sex to suggest that women could not be found who are far worthier of appointment to the Council than some of the men whom the National Government in one of its most deplorable lapses from duty professed to deean worthy of the honour.

In ite main object the Legislative Council Amendment' Bill must be regard-. Ed as unexceptionable because inevitable.' The measure which the first Massey Government succeeded in placing on the Statute Book in .1914 was the subject of a keen party strife, and the postponement of its operation was a part of the price which the Reformers bad to pay for4he party truce effected in the following year. Though they did not say so, it is probable that the payment was regarded by many of them as involving a very severe sacrifice. The party was zealous in its support of the reform wthen it wem in Opposition, and powerful Liberal Governments found in the power of nominative appointments to ' the Legislative Council a means of establishing an even more rigid control of that Chamber tihan of the other. True to .their election, pledges, the Reformers took the task of making the Council- elective in hand as soon as the opportunity .arose after the General Election of 1911. But the Bill did not excite the same enthusiasm which the platform denunciations of the much- j abused nominative system had aroused, j To a close inspection, the defects of the j .proposed substitute naturally became much, more oEvious than they had appeared from » distance, and the enthusiasm which: weakened on tbe appearance of th© BUI has probably declined still j further since it areached th« Statute i Book, During the debate on tie present Bill in the Legislative Council last' week, the Hon. J. T. Paul said that "he could not help thinking that they' wore nmv assisting at tbe funeral of the j Legislative Council Act"; to which Sir Francis Bell retorted, "Then I shall be the chief mourner."

We fully believe that Sir Francis, if Mr. Paul's anticipation were realised, would be the chief mournar of a measure of which, be has hitherto been Hie chief champion. We believe, however, that it ia on the lines of compromise that he will best conciliate the- antagonism of the opponents of the Bill andi allay the apprehensions of some of its half-hearted supporters. The last batch of appointments to the Legislative Council has vividly reminded tbe country that even a National Covetninent, weighted by the responsibilities of the greatest of wars and toacked iby a -patriotism which has no respect for parties, cannot be trusted to exercise its patronage with regard to the Legislative Council .worthily. But the clean cut proposed 'by the Act of 1914 opens the way for ofclrer abuses, and a modification which ■would; allow any Government to select a .leader for the Council regardless of the chances of election, and to, make a UsniiwJ Ittjttibw of other *ppmflfcm«nteii