SESSION AND FUTURE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 69, 19 September 1938, Page 8

SESSION AND FUTURE

Judged by usual standards, the final session of the present Parliament which ended last week was a normal one. Ordinary business was overshadowed by the passage of the Social Security Act, and measures which the public had a right to expect were deferred. In | spite of its many promises, the Government, with a record of unprecedented expenditure behind it and with unprecedented commitments before it, shied at the taxation problem, , and taxpayers are asked to be satisfied with another promise, not that the burden will be reduced but that there will be a consolidation of taxation law, whatever that may mean. The reform of the education laws was also deferred, and this, too, will cause disappointment,, for though the present Minister has made some I changes the need for a more complete ■ overhaul to meet present-day problems is pressing. In placing on the Statute Book its piece de resistance, the Social Security Act, the Government forced on the country a politically conceived measure without giving due consideration to its implications. Evidence placed. before the Special Parliamentary Committee which considered the legislation, evidence weighty enough to give rise to a very real feeling of apprehension in the minds of all those concerned with the future financial stability of the country, was ignored, and as a result New Zealand is committed to an expenditure which makes the future very uncertain. In other respects, too, the legislation has many undesirable features, not the least of which is its lack of equity. On the whole tJhe public have small reason to be satisfied with the work performed during Labour's final term of office or, indeed, with Labour's record since 1935. Fortunately, democracy gives the | people the right to decide the future I course of events, and resting on the Selectors is a plain duty—firstly, to | make sure they are on the roll, and, secondly, to record their votes. Only by doing that can they hope for a satisfactory decision in the electoral battle al\ead. Tomorrow the present Parliament will be dissolved and on [Thursday the writs will be issued for | the General Election, to be held on ! Saturday, October 15. On this occasion the issue before the country is straightforward. There is no third i party in the field to confuse it, and, except in those electorates where Independents have entered the fight, the electors will have to decide between Labour and National candidates and between Labour and National principles. Too often side issues have prevented a clear expression of opinion by the electorate, but this year there is no room for confusion. The people must decide either to return the Government, which is plainly Socialistic in its outlook, or it must replace it by the National Party, which offers a return to. those principles of private enterprise and individual initiative on which the progress of New Zealand over the years has been based. Unofficially, the General Election campaign has been in progress for many months; officially, it will be opened this week, when the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition are expected to place their respective policies before the public. The time for campaigning is comparatively short, but apparently the Government relies upon the extensive use of broadcasting to balance this lack of time. It is the more regrettable, therefore, that in the allocation of the right to use the air the Prime Minister has weighted the scales in favour of Labour and the Labourleaning Independents and reserved to himself the right to intervene as Prime Minister without conceding an equal right to the Leader of the ! Opposition.