Manawatu Evening Standard. TUESDAY, JAY. 26, 1926. POLITICS IN AUSTRALIA

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVI, Issue 48, 26 January 1926, Page 6

Manawatu Evening Standard. TUESDAY, JAY. 26, 1926. POLITICS IN AUSTRALIA

Tiie shadow of tlie Commonwealth Parliament now appears to be so mucli over tlie State legislatures tliat, especially in Mew South Wales, there is a steadily growing- feeling- that the sooner the latter are displaced by local governing bodies, exercising a wider jurisdiction, and endowed with somewhat larger powers than the existing municipalities and shire or county councils, the better. The Yew South Wales Premier, Mr J. T. Lang, is justifying his Government’s policy in legislating for the abolition of the Legislative Council on the ground that it is a first step in the.-direction of decentralisation, and the establishment of provincial councils, tvhich should replace State Parliaments. It was often remarked prior to the abolition of the Queensland Legislative Council that, with fourteen Houses of Parliament, Australia was maintaining overhead governing establishments far beyond its requirements. With the abolition of the Queensland Council the number was reduced to thirteen, and, of late years, there has been such a marked, deterioration in the calibre and personnel of the State Legislatures as to occasion serious disquiet among .thinking people. Yew South Wales remains the premier as it is also the Mother State of the Commonwealth. It contains more than a third of the population, and its metropolis (Sydney) which, with Yewcastle and district, commands a majority of the seats in the Assembly (the elected branch of the Legislature), contains 44.89 per cent, of the population of the State. Everything- in the State (it has been said) centres in Sydney, which has resident within its limits nearly one-lialf of the population of Yew South Wales. Accepting Mr Lang’s statement and belief in decentralisation at their face value, it may readily be conceded that, fronl the country point of view, a change from the existing form of government is not only desirable but essential to the better government of the people. Although it only ranks fourth amongst the States, so far as the territory it comprises is concerned, Yew South Wales contains

an area of _ 309,432 square miles, and agitations have been afoot for some years past for the creation of new States in the north and south-west portions of its territory. The Yew States Commission, which was set up to inquire into the business, reported against, the proposals made in that direction, on the ground, principally, that the population in those districts did not warrant the extra expense which would be incurred, were the new States set up. . Mr Lang’s provincial councils idea would probably meet all the needs of the situation, provided the Commonwealth Parliament was strengthened in its membership, and took over the major governing responsibilities of the States. Provincial councils might be established in at least half-a-dozen centres to supervise such matters as come within the jurisdiction of local governing- bodies, together with roads and bridges and other public works necessary for the development of their respective districts, as also the educational and health requirements of their people, leaving- to the one legislature (the Commonwealth Parliament) matters of national concern. A Sydney paper, comment-' ing upon the growing ascendancy of the Federal body, says that “in the early days of the Commonwealth when the Parliament of Yew South Wales was still a strong, free and deliberative body, it could withstand the central legislature. After the first decade of this century, the State Parliament began to sink in the popular estimation. Yow Mr Lang has completed its humiliation, and the movement to aggrandise the Commonwealth is rapidly growing.’’ The smaller States (Tasmania and Western Australia) are confronted with continually increasing embarrassments from the financial standpoint, and some change in the relationships between the States and the Commonwealth would seem to be inevitable. Mr Lang, in the opinion of the journal from which we have quoted, has, by his autocratic methods of government, strengthened the hands of those who desire (apart from such motives as his own) to see the Federal Government replacing the State Legislatures; but, before any serious changes can be made in the constitution of the Commonwealth, the people must be consulted by means of the referendum. Opinion is said to be moving so steadily in that direction that (in the words of the paper we have already quoted) “it is not difficult to forecast that, within a few years, the sovereign States will lose their sovereignty and approximate in status to the provinces of the South African Onion.”