Evening Post. MONDAY, FEBRUAEY, 28, 1927. COUNCIL APPOINTMENTS

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 49, 28 February 1927, Page 8

Evening Post. MONDAY, FEBRUAEY, 28, 1927. COUNCIL APPOINTMENTS

The five months of Imperial service from which the Prime Minister returned a fortnight ago are being followed by another during which the responsibilities of the Royal visit- <are perhaps proving equally exacting. When these have been discharged the session will be not much more, than three months away, and it -.will be high time for Mr. Coates to face .-the demands of a political situation which is far from simple and to give us some idea of how he proposes to meet them. At present his position is not nearly so strong as it was a year ago. The opening session of a Parliament fresh from the constituencies is always to some extent of a tentative or probationary character. The new House needs time to settle down to its duties, and on this occasion there was also, a new Government with a Prime Minister who, though he had already weathered one session, had never had any direct authority from the electors before. The probationary character of the present Parliament's first session having thus been more marked than usual, the importance of the second one is likely to be proportionately increased. The Prime Minister will therefore, be wise to lose no chance of strengthening his position in ,anticipation of the severer strain which the coming session may be expected to. impose upon a majority a good deal too large to be comfortable and a team of' colleagues not quite strong enough. • One opportunity of the kind will be presented by the vacancies in the Legislative Council. The Government did itself no good by the appointments which it made last year, but for the reasons that we have stated self-interest conspires with duty to demand a more 'careful selection, now. Before the end of June the seats of no less than } six members of .the Legislative Council will have been vacated by lapse of. time, and before the end of the session the number will have been increased to seven. Some of these members may reasonably expect reappointment, but certainly not all. There is of course no obligation on the Government either to renew any of ' these appointments or to 'make any fresh ones. In form the Legislative Council as at present constituted was. abolished more than twelve years ago.: One of the most important items .in the programme on which the Reform Party came into power after the General Election of 1911 was the proposal to make the Legislative Council, elective. Effect was given to this proposal by the Legislative Council of 1914, but the operation of the measure, which had been originally fixed for the Ist January, 1916, was postponed owing to the Reform-Liberal coalition which was formed in 1915 to carry on the War. Though three General Elections have been held'since the conclusion of the War and the dissolution of the National Government, and the Reform Party has won every time, the Legislative Council still remains a dead letter on the Statute-book, capable of being brought into life at any time by the gazetting of a Proclamation to that effect. It is little short of -farcical that a measure of such fundamental importance should remain for all these years in a state of suspended animation, with no Government courageous enough to say "Yes" or "No" and no Opposition sufficiently interested to insist upon one answer or the other. We suggest that "the man who gets things done" should get something done to bring this absurd anomaly to a close. But whatever action the Government might take could not give us an elected Legislative Council until after the next General Election, and in the meantime the Council must continue on its present basis. The Government has the power to fill the vacancies that will shortly arise, and doubtless recognises that it has a duty to fill at any rate some of them. To leave all the seven places unfilled would certainly be to leave the Council too weak. There is no fixed limit of membership, but a good working rule is that its strength should be about half that of the House. By providing for a Council of 40 the Legislative Council Act of 1914, if it ever comes into operation, will make this rule a binding one. With 41 members the present Legislative Council therefore conforms almost exactly 'with the rule approved by usage and by Parliament, and the impending loss of, seven members will leave it considerably below its proper strength if none of the gaps is rilled. The Government will be under no temptation to take this course, but we are not so confident that its power will be wisely exercised. There is, indeed, one appointment for which, regardless altogether of these vacancies, the country has been confidently looking, and which it would have been glad to see made months ago. Sir James Allen has returned after adding to his long and honourable local record a period of distinguished service in London. A veteran but still fit for work,, and still keen for work, he has continued to serve his country in a private capacity, but it is equally unfair to the country and to himself that a man of his talent and experience should not be given the opportunity of more

.effective service. Sir James Allen is

indeed the very kind of man for whom, almost ex offieio, a place in

the Legislative Council should be always open. Long before he became High Commissioner, we argued that the appointments to a certain proportion of the seats in the Council should continue to be by nomination in order that room might be found at any time for distinguished public servants without their being compelled to await the risks of election, and Sir James Allen's return has greatly strengthened .the argument. While Sir James Alle_n's claims to a seat in the Legislative Council may therefore be regarded as irresistible, it is also clear that he has very strong claims to the leadership. The arrangement made last session was merely a makeshift, but it was left uncertain whether Sir Francis Bell would return to the position after his visit to England. So far as the public is concerned, the uncertainty still continues, but the Government cannot allow the matter to remain in doubt much longer. Subject to Sir Francis Bell's indefeasible claim, Sir James Allen's qualifications for the position are unrivalled, and by recognising them the Government would add greatly to its strength.