HASTY LEGISLATION IN ENGLAND

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 4 March 1927, Page 4

HASTY LEGISLATION IN ENGLAND

(To tlio Editor). Sir, —In, reference to the cabled note regarding the above, have you room for the enclosed extract from the “Law Times” of the day before last Christmas?: — . “One has only to look at the official reports of the Parliamentary debates in both Houses of Parliament during the last ten days of the session to appreciate why so much badly-drafted and ill-digested legislation is placed on the Statute Book. In the House of Lords on the Monday preceding prorogation, between a quarter past four in the afternoon and five minutes past seven, twelve Bibs were ‘considered’ by the peers. On Tuesday between a quarter past four and ten minutes past eight seven Bills went through their Lordships’ House. The Judicial Proceedings (Regujation of Reports) Bill was a particularly bad example. It nvas read the first time on the Monday, and on Tuesday it passed through second reading, committee, report, third reading and was returned to the Commons. We think that everyone will agree with Lord Carson’s protest on the motion for the second reading when he said: ‘lt is a Bill which, requires examination, and I am one of those who are of opinion that the House of Lords is a proper revising chamber. But we are fast getting away from that every day. The last couple of weeks have shown that we have allowed Bills to go upon the Statue Book involving the most enormous changes and the most enormous burdens upon the taxpayers of this country without even a moderate, decent revision of the measures that -have been brought forward. I hope that w« shall not abrogate the position that the Constitution puts upon us. Why is it » that we are to be the mere hand- * maidens of a Conservative Government? That is what brings us into disrepute. I have had I do not know how many letters from people—some of them of great business asking me to put down amendments a§ regards various Bills, one particularly in which I took a good deal of interest • —Bills like the Electricity (Suppy) Bill and the Merchandise Marks (Imported Goods) Bill. If this were really a revising chamber and we were really doing business here and engaged in realities, I would not mind the sacrifice of any amount of time in trying to make the Bills better. But I have written back to al 1 those who wrote to me to say that this was a mere matter of form, as things are at present constituted in this House, and that it was not worth while putting down amendmtnts or trying to deal with details because the House is so discouraged by the way in which business is transacted, by having Bills brought up and thrown at our heads in the last two or three days of the session and being told that we must pass them before Christmas, , that it really is not worth anybody’s while to give up his time, his attention and his energies to trying to make these Bills any better.’ , “It is satisfactory to learn that matters in this Tegard have reached such a stage that steps are to be taken to prevent in the future the methods of the past. Lord Cave, on Monday last, after statin, a- that it was a bad system to send to the House of Lords a number of Bills during the last week of the session, said that the question had been brought before the Cabinet, who Were considering whether they could bring about some revision of the Standing Orders by which Bills might be continued in the next session to prevent their being hurried through, and that the subject had been referred to a committee.” I am, etc., L. A. TAYLOR,