Evening Post. MONDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1918. A VICIOUS PRINCIPLE

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 139, 9 December 1918, Page 6

Evening Post. MONDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1918. A VICIOUS PRINCIPLE

One of the most glaring abuses to which liberal autocracy resorted towards the close of its long lease of power was that of "legislation by exhaustion." Whatever protection an attenuated Opposition might otherwise have derived .from the forms of the House was broken down towards the close of a session by prolonged sittings during which important measures were rushed through after physical weariness had silenced or emasculated criticism. When their own turn of office came the Reform leaders did little to mitigate the evil which they had so loudly denounced. If they were less 'thoroughgoing than their opponents had been, the improvement seemed to be due to lack of power rather than to lack of will. The smallness of their majority prevented the Reformers from fully reciprocating the treatment that they had received, but they went about as far as the circumstances permitted. In the reconstructed Massey Government, in which both Liberals and Reformers have pooled their patriotism and their statesmanship, they seem also to have pooled their' resources of Parliamentary mismanagement. Legislation haa been rushed through during the last few days at a pace which has made it quite impossible for members to know what they are doing, and the chances are that during the next day or two the desperate anxiety to bring the session to a close will intensify the evil. That a longstanding abuse.' of the party system should now be perpetuated and aggravated by a National Government, and for the purpose of releasing its leaders on their momentous Imperial mission, really makes matters worse.

It is not merely that the process is a wild travesty of- reasonable procedure, a complete negation 6f the deliberation and discussion for which Parliament exists, and that the good purpose for which the wretched system is invoked aggravates the mischief by giving.'a sort o£ national status to what was previously sure of the fiercest condemnation of one party at least. In- Great Britain the co-operation of parties in a National Government has not merely served the purposes of the war as it: has in New Zealand; it has also put through a series of gfeaj> reforms which it would have taken, years of arduous effort and bitter conflict to accomplish in time pi peace. It is a sorTowful contrast to this wonderful record that in New Zealand not merely, has reform of any kind been almost entirely in abeyance under a National Government, but that in a matter of such fundamental concern as the efficiency of the Parliamentary machine the'most glaring of its abuses ehould have been deliberately fostered and strengthened in such a manner as to make the reform which every sensible man desires a more forlorn hope than ever. But the mischiefs of the vicious practice from which the National Government is deriving a temporary benefit are not limited to procedure. They are also inevitably affecting the substance of the legislation which^s thus being put blindly through. Some of the legitimate and laudable objects which the Government has in view will doubtless be found to have been frustrated or impeded by the lack of due attention, both in Cabinet and in Parliament, to the measures designed to promote them. On the .o.ther hand, some objects which the Government had ( deliberately in view were not of a kind to stand examination, but measures incorporating them have been put through in the melee without examination, and with' consequences which Parliament and the country are likely to deplore when the opportunity for reflection has been given.

One of the most striking examples' of this kind is contained in the fourth and fifth clauses of the Post and Telegraph Department Bill. The one achievement of the Reform Party which has done most to justify its title is the Public Service Act of 1912. This measure freed a large part of the Public Service from the Ministerial control had been so gravely abused dndng the Liberal Tegiirse. The only thing wrong with the measure was that it did not go far enough, but there was reason to hope that the principle of non-political control which it asserted would be extended in due course to tha excepted portions of the Service, or at any rate to some of them. This hope received strong' encouragement last year from the testimony to the excellent effects of the measure which was borne by some of those- who had previously opposed it. The most striking of these testimonies was that of the Hon. G. W. Russell, who, both as a strong party man and as Minister of Internal Affairs, spoko with special weight. But Mr. Russell's authority is unfortunately outweighed by that of the Reform members of the Cabinet', all of whom must be taken to have assented to the blow which has been struck at the principle by the clauses above mentioned. One of the largest and most important Departments —the Post and Telegraph Department— is practically cut away from the control of the Public Service Commissioner by these clauses. The appointment of the three principal" officers—the Secretary and the two Assistant-Secretaries—is given to the Governor-General —that is to «Ay, to the Minister j and though member* were asked to note that other appointments are left with the Commiswener, th* vftlae of this r«erv«*idn does aft* Mwpl 'to VMJK »a& l« ?*** «* &»•

fact that the Bill expressly declarer that the Public Service Act shall have no application to the Post and Telegraph department. Without consideration and with hardly a protest except from Mr. E. Newman, the Reform Party has stultified itself by undoing a large part of its best work by a compromise which no party Government could have effected, and the National Government has reinstated a vicious principle against,which ita very existence was supposed to constitute a safeguard.