Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20, 1928. POLICY AND PRACTICE

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 144, 20 June 1928, Page 12

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20, 1928. POLICY AND PRACTICE

A weakness of the Prime Minister's speech at the Reform Party's rally last week was an excessive, tendency to generalities and to retrospection. He was of course right to pay particular attention to the history of the last .three years— ; the period of his Premiership and the period which supplies the principal criteria of his qualifications for a renewal of the electors' confidence. But" this useful exposition requires as a complement some clearer indication of future exposition of future policy, and'it is not strengthened but weakened by an extravagance of generalities,which have" no: closer relation; to practical politics than' so, many copy;book 'headings. For instance:— The "basic and.fundamental xirinciples of good government—the principles of tho present Government- —were tho maintenance •of law and order; tho maintenance of Justice and liberty; the preservation of property and the. saiietity of religious beliefs; provision for free oducation arid opportunity for all;'and the promotion of' the welfare .of the whole 'of the . community, and not■ any particular section of-it. They claimed that Hhcse principles had been faithfully' maintained. ' .. So ■ basic and so fundamental are these .principles, that except 6n a single point they are accepted by all parties, and with that exception they are, therefore, little, if. any,--values as guides to practice. The same remark applies to a large pro-, portion of the less extensive generalisations which Mr. Coates declared to represent the outstanding principles of the Reform, Party. "The preservation of property," is the exception to which we refer, for the destruction, of private property is a fundamental article of the creed of Labour. The same party's attitude to the Empire constitutes the only exception to the universality of the statement which the Prime Minister thought it worth while to reproduce from his campaign speeches of 1925 for the purposes of his peroration: — : We stand for. stability and safety of tho .State and tho Empire; for the security of tho individual; 'for. toleration and equal opportunity for all, ■■ and for ordor and peace in the community. There is, however,, one of these three-year-old slogans which we should be glad to hear, more frequently from the Prime Minister's lips' and, to see more consistently guiding his practice. "More business in Government and less Government in business" as a principle in which the Reform Party is still, supposed to believe, and it should serve ferentiate Reform and Labour far more clearly than 90 per cent, of the generalities that Mr. Coates* used for that /purpose on Thursday. One of the most "definite of the hopes inspired by his accession to office was that a. tendency which in all countries had derived a great stimulus from the necessities of the War would receive a.severe check,as equally inimical to business and to Government. But the hope has been disappointed. . The pressure of his bureaucracy!, the pressure of Parliament, and the irresistible tendency of tire appetite f6r power to-grow by what it feeds on. have been too much for the strong man.:; There have, as we pointed- "out! on Friday, been some welcome indications of "more business in/ Government" - indications which the Prime Minister would of course be glad to multiply indefin-' itely. But the ideal of "less Government in business" has not ; been helped but hindered. ( The Government is, steadily, increasing the num-. ber of its (enterprises, arid in order to carry, them, out effectively continues to enlarge the . autocratic powers of itself arid its'officials at the expense of every other authority, and in so doing to weaken the constitutional safeguards which exist for the protection of democracy. So gravely is this steady process of encroachment regarded by! the legal'profession that it formed the subject of the principal paper read at their Christchurch Conference and of a unanimous resolution of protest. Strong disapproval was expressed by this resolution both of "the growing practice' of legislating by regulation in: important matters," and of "the tendency of recent legislation to entrust to officials wide powers not subject to control by the Courts." •'ln the one case Parliament abdicates its own legislative authority' in favour of the Government; in the other, another constitutional privilege is violated by enabling the fiat officials to supersede the jurisdiction of the Courts. The Board of Trade regulation's by which the Government has drastically restricted motor-bus competition' represent perhaps the neatest case of all. The Board of Trade was created during the War to deal with the cost of living.: It has since been abolished, but its name still exists for the sole purpose of draping the autocracy under which, without the intervention of Parliament and without.any right of appeal to the Courts, the Government could, as Mr. A..- F. Wright said in his paper, fix the, fees of lawyers, doctors, architects, and every other profession of calling and impose fines up to. £1000 and imprisonment up to.- three months in the event of a breach! Striking examples of the extension of these autocratic powers to coal-

mining and gold-mining, to the liability of boroughs under, the Public Works Act, and other fhatters were also laid before the Legal Conference, but what from the constitutional standpoint is the most picturesque and the most ludicrous, if not the most important'case of all, does not. seem to have been discussed. How many of our people are aware that it rests with the Government of the Day to say whether or not the Legislative Council shall be made elective? And how many of our politicians think that it is a big enough thjng to worry about? In 1914 the Council was made elective, but in the following year the operation of the Act was postponed pursuant to the compact which , established the National Government. The National Government has come and gone; three General Elections have co_ie and gone; but nobody pays any heed to the fact that the. Legislative Council Act has been sleeping on the Statute Book for nearly fourteen years and may be waked to life at any moment by a Proclamation to that effect in the "Gazette." Had such a power been entrusted to the Government in Italy or the United States most of us would have shrugged our shoulders and said: "Just what you might 'have expected of those tyrantridden Fascists;" or "of those lawless Americans," as the case might be. But a constitutional absurdity which may well be without a parallel in any democracy is our very own. What have the lawyers to say about it? and what especially has the AttorneyGeneral, who is their leader, to say about it? ;■'■"'' •'■ ; ''•■-'■■■ ■