Evening Post. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1924. PARLIAMENTARY REFORM

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 64, 12 September 1924, Page 6

Evening Post. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1924. PARLIAMENTARY REFORM

The right to discuss a Bill on the motion for leave to introduce it has been seriously abused during the present session for the purpose of obstruction. At this stage of the proceedings a Bill may have a name and nothing more. It is not submitted to the House, the; member if he really means business says nothing about its provisions, and the motion goes through like clock-work. But if a Bill of the same name has been introduced by the same member in previous sessions the House is not left entirely to conjecture as to its contents. It was the knowledge gained in this way that inspired the Labour Party to talk out Mr. Massey's Legislature Amendment Bill several times on the motion for leave to introduce it. The debate on the Hon. J. A. Hanan's motion for leave to introduce his Election of Ministers and Party Government Reform Bill was based' on similar knowledge. In this ease, however, the. object was not obstruction, for he himself set the ball rolling in a speech which said very little about the Bill but a good deal about the evils of party government. It was likely to be his only chance, and he made the most of it. Protesting that they did not know what was in the Bill, members nevertheless carried on the debate along the same lines. In his reply Mr. Hanan was unkind enough to denounce these professions of ignorcance as "political humbug," and revealed the secret which some of them had already guessed that the Bill was the same Bill that he had introduced last session.

The object of the measure, as Mr. Hanan explained, is to do away not with party government but with many of the abuses that flourish under it. The Bill provides for the election of Ministers by the House, and for the abolition of their collective responsibility. The House which appoints the: Ministers will also be able to remove them, and it will be able to do so individually if it so desires.

The' Bill, said Mr. Massey, was a development of the principle that the people should control the Legislature. ll enabled tho people indirectly to elect the Executive of Parliament, giving the members of Parliament who represented them the right to say who should constitute the Executive of the day. It destroyed collective responsibility, and prevented , Ministers from sheltering behind Cabinet or the Prime Minister for their blunders or incompetent administration. The Government had no right to deny the people tho right to say how the Executive should be constituted

Theoretically, the scheme is excellent. Instead of a Parliament controlled by, the-Executive and the Executive controlled by the Prime Minister, the Bill-promises to free both the Executive and Parliament from the control of a single will, to allow the House to appoint the whole Executive and to remove any member of it who through incompetent, administration or for any other reason loses its confidence, and to do this without tho general upheaval involved in the carrying of a no-confidence motion, the resignation of the'whole Cabinet, and an appeal to the country. A plan that would restore the independence and dignity of Parliament, take the sting out of the party whip, and free members from the apparently irresistible pressure which drives them to make a party question even of such a plain business issue as that presented by the termination or extension of the moratorium, would strike - at the root of the malady from' which all the democracies of the world appear to be .suffering. "The House to-day," said Mr. .Hanan, "was dominated by a one-man Government supported by party hacks." Exactly the same thing might have been said of the Liberal Government of thirty years ago, and a very superficial search in "Hansard" and in the Press would reveal the fact that it repeatedly was said by Mr. Massey and his friends while Mr. Seddon was in power. IS is the old, old story. They were keenly alive to the faults of others, but "they tax not themselves, though they do just the same." In one respect the position may even be considered to be worse than it was during the long Liberal regime. While the Keform Party was preaching its virtv.ous gospel in Opposition • there was hope for a .radical improvement when there was a change of Government. But since Keforrn has shown itself in office quite unable to reform itself, in what direction are we to turn for salvation?

A recent development for which neither Liberals nor Reformers can be blamed has further complicated the position, and that is the rise of the Labour Party. Mr. Hanan argued that, though while there were only .two parties the need for reform was less urgent, the development of the three-party sjstem demanded a change which would "give stability'to the situa-r tion." The need for stability is beyond question urgent, but would the voting of a Labour member or two into a Reform or a Liberal Cabinet make for stability? or would the power oE attacking a Cabinet in dotuil by concentrating

too weak—or possibly too strong— for his job, tend in that direction? The probable attitude of a Cabinet so attacked indicates the fundamental weakness of Mr. Hanan's scheme and of all other attempts to cure by constitutional reform evils which have grown up outside ■. the constitution. The best security for a Cabinet against the inconveniences threatened by Mr. Hanan's Bill would be a pledge by all its members to stand or fall together. The collective responsibility which he desires to destroy vould thus be restored without so much as a stroke of the pen, and the Cabinet would be as solid as before. Fortified by this simple and obvious device, would not a united Cabinet be able to dictate to Parliament by the threat of resignation and dissolution just as effectively as it does now I The fact is that on paper Parliament is already free, and therel is unfortunately no reason to hope that a further instalment of paper freedom will do it much good. The fundamental weakness of Parliament is a matter not of machinery but of personnel.