Evening Post. MONDAY, AUGUST 10, 1925. THE COUNCIL'S CRITICS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 35, 10 August 1925, Page 6

Evening Post. MONDAY, AUGUST 10, 1925. THE COUNCIL'S CRITICS

The a ttack made by Mr. Monteith, M.P., on the Legislative Council would have carried more weight if it had not been obviously inspired by an entirely irrelevant personal affront. and supported by fallacious mathematics. In a burst of candour which did more credit to his heart than to his judgment, he confided to the House and to the country that he had been insulted by an unnamed member of the Legislative Council, and by way of enlarging his claim for sympathy, he added that his detractor had been paid at the rate of £14 a minute for the time spent in the perpetration of the outrage. Libels have before now cost the perpetrators a higher rate than £14 a minute, but if one of them has actually been paid at that rate many will agree with the victim that the wages of sin have become excessive. But was there any sin in this case? Has Mr. Mbnteith really been libelled? We regret to say that on this fundamental point his case is deplorably weak —so weak, indeed, that even the least adventurous of Judges could hardily refuse to withdraw the case from the jury. What the Legislative Councillor objected to was the manner in which Mr. Monteith sang the National Anthem. He did not say that the spirit was lacking—a charge from which some other members of the Labour Party might have difficulty in clearing themselves. He merely said that the flesh was weak, and in the absence of any allegation from the plaintiff that it was strong the conclusion is inevitable that the charge was true.

In the painful position in which the member for Wellington East was placed, an innocent man would surely have done two things. . He would have unequivocally and indignantly denied the charge, and he would voluntarily have submitted himself to the acid test of auricular demonstration —a process in which, however painful to the House, he could have relied upon the fellow-feeling which makes men wondrous kind. Unable to raise the shield of innocence, the accused provided " further evidence of a guilty conscience by indulging in violent reci'hninations aimed not so much at his critics individually as at a number of quite innocent persons associated with him.- " When it has got that far," said Mr. Monteilh, "it is just about time that the outfit was wiped out"—meaning thereby that for the alleged default of one of its members the whole Legislative Council should be destroyed. Eeprisals on so sweeping a scale are worthier of a, Berserker or an Oriental despot than of the peace and the justice which are among the ideals of the Labour Party. " Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city," pleaded Abraham when the wicked city of Sodom was threatened with destruction, and he ultimately obtained the promise that if even ten righteous could be found there the city should be spared. Yet the 4 lapse of a single unrighteous Legislative Councillor is to be made tho ground for overthrowing the whole institution and not leaving one sfcone standing upon another!

It' the offence had really been rewarded, as Mr. Monteith alleges, at the rate of £14 a minute, many other Legislative Councillors might be tempted to tell the truth about gentlemen in another place, and with very serious results. -How the estimate is arrived at vve are unable to say, but,-without .goiiif? into di-t.-nJs or al-.l.pmpting a rivni nstiiriatp. jl.-sepivis m sato conjecture tliwt thorp must be h enti'li soiup-

could prove that his estimate- is correct, he would greatly increase the respect in which the Council is held. Legislative Councillors who are paid at the rate of £14 a minute must be credited with a very honourable reticence if for six weeks together, as Mr. Holland alleges, they only talk to the extent of five hours and three minutes a week. With " wealth beyond the dreams of avarice" to be won by mere talk, they nevertheless refuse to talk when there is nothing to say, and such a conspicuous neglect of the first duty of a politician naturally incurs the contempt of the most talkative party in the House.

The imagination boggles at the attempt to conceive the rate at which what the late Lord Salis : bury called " the dreary drip of dilatory declamation " would run if members of the House were paid at the rate of £14 a minute. It might be well, however, for those who do not measure a politician's efficiency by the pages he covers in "Hansard" to consider whether the opposite principle might not ibe profitably applied to the House of Representatives. To pay Legislative Councillors £14 a, minute for their speeches may be a high price, but Mr. Holland's party includes some M.P.'s whose silence might be considered well worth that figure. It is too late for the Finance Minister to deal with the matter in,his Budget, but there are fortunately still the Supplementary Estimates to come.