The Evening Star MONDAY, AUGUST 21, 1922. THE SESSION.

Evening Star, Issue 18052, 21 August 1922, Page 4

The Evening Star MONDAY, AUGUST 21, 1922. THE SESSION.

For more than seven weeks now Parliament has 'been sifting. Iks volubility during that period', we should say, has been well up to the average. It has enjoyed debates on two—practically three —nocoufidenco motions, chiefly useful as an incentive to garrulity, since not ono of them had any chance of being passed. It has had Us abortive scandal, which ono expects in a pre-election session—Mr M'Combs has seen to that; and it has received three important reports —those of the parliamentary committee on tho licensing question, of tho Taxation Committee, and of Sir John Salmond on his Washington mission. But tho mere receiving of reports hardly counts as business. Tho action that results from them is the important matter. With regard to these reports, it has been made clear that no action will result from the first of thorn so far as this session is concerned; tho influence of the Taxation Committee’s recommendations is mjt apparent in the Financial Statement; and the endorsement, without opposition, of tho agreements reached at Washington was a matter of course. Apart from tho ratification of tho Australian tariff agreement and tho formal approval given to tho Washington decisions, the concrete performance of tho House, ns distinct from talk, might be set .down as next to nothing. A useful function is performed no doubt by Parliament when it serves merely as a talking shop—the role which its name implies—a venthole. in other words, by which tho grievances of all sections of the community, through tire verbosity of their representatives, may escape in harmless gas. But a time limit is needed for that function at the cost which parliamentary sessions entail.

A talking session was expected for this last one of Parliament. The Governor’s Speech sketched only the slightest programme of Bills to bo passed. The programme has not been added to by the Financial Statement, in which hardly one Bill is foreshadowed. The time’s chief need is economy. Last year was a bad one for business, except of the parliamentary kind. The first half of this year was no better. Conditions are now improving. Not unnaturally the demand has been made by retailers in more than one city that the “ Thyestean banquet of claptrap ” should bo cut short for once, and the ses, sion ended at such a lime' as will allow the triennial disturbance of elections to be got over before it can interfere —as it did three years ago—with their Christmas trade. The elections were hold then on December 17, after a session which began on August 23 and ended on November 5. It should be an easy matter for the present session, which began on June 28, To be ended some weeks earlier, with a view to the acceleration of the elections. It is not only the retailers who would be benefited. Time scent on resultless debates in Parliament, at a cost of more than £1 a minute, is time which the dominion cannot afford. The report of the Taxation Committee requires discussion, which can naturally bo given to it during the Financial Debate, which begins to-morrow night; but the main facts of the financial position, as apart from proposals for tho future, have already been threshed out to exhaustion, and a debate on tho Budget that should last a fortnight would be mainly a waste of time. A welcome sign that Mr Wilford, leader of the Opposition, does not expect this one to last so long may bo afforded by the fact that he has arranged to give an address in Dunedin on Monday next. It is time that the House got down to concrete business. Mr Wilford may move an amendment of. no confidence when the debate begins to-morrow, but tho country has had a surfeit of such amendments, which, in tho state of parties, form no more than a gesture, made more absurd to the extent that it is protracted. A month must elapse still before the Tax Bill can come down, since Mr Massey has stated that he will require to wait that time before it will ho possible for him to say if he can reduce income taxation, but other measures should be disposed of with the least delay. Since the business sot down for Parliament is much smaller than usual, there is no reason why a long session should be required for it.