DWINDLING AWAY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 251, 20 September 1933, Page 7

DWINDLING AWAY

THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL. DOWN TO 21 AND NO APPOINTMENTS. (By Telegraph.—Special to Standard.) WELLINGTON, Sept. 20. Political speculation has recently been lively over the names of individuals who were expected to be “called” to the Legislative Council, and there was more than the usual interest in the first Executive Council meeting called for last Monday, following the return to the Dominion of the Prime Minister. It was believed that several former councillors together with a few representative men from Auckland, Wellington and the South Island would be appointed to the Council, just in time to take their seats for the session’s opening. But nothing was done, anu the impression conveyed by Ministers was that for the present, at any rate, Cabinet is not concerned over the attenuation of the Upper House. Though the unwritten law is that the Council should number about 40 members, or half the total in the elected Chamber, those who hold office to-day total but 21, and they are not all on the active list. It is worth while noting the names of the smallest Council within living memory, as an indication of the body now responsible for revising the legislation of the House of Representatives: Hon. Sir Walter' Carncross, Speaker (Taranaki) Hon. Sir James- Allen (Otago) Hon. Sir Francis Bell (Wellington) Hon. D. Buddo (Canterbury) Hon. C. J. Carrington (Auckland) Col. Hon. W. E. Collins (Wellington) Hon. M. Fagan (West Coast) Hon. Sir Wm. Hall-Jones (Wellington) Hon. J. A. Hanan (Otago) Hon. R. McCalium (Marlborough) Hon. J. McGregor (Otago) Hon. W. 11. Mclntyre (Nelson) Hon. R. Masters (Taranaki) Hon. Sir E. Mitchclson (Auckland) Hon. R. Moore (Canterbury) Hon. Sir J. Parr (Auckland) Hon. R. Scott (Otago) Hon. W. W. Snodgrass (Nelson) Hon. Col. G. J. Smith (Canterbury) Hon. W. Stevenson (Invercargill) Hon. J. Trevethick (Auckland) Fortunately for the Upper House, the Standing Orders do not provide for a minimum attendance as a quorum, which in the case of the Lower House is 20 members. But in other directions the shortage of Councillors leads to difficulties. The Council is required to set up three Select Committees on local Bills, each comprising ten members. Under the circumstances the Council has to put its members on all these committees, changing only the title though not the personnel. As a revisory Chamber the Council has been doing useful work for the community in seeing that the intentions of the House of Representatives are faithfully and clearly expressed in statute form, and it has on occasion held, up Bills for further discussion in the hope of making modifications. The smallness of its total reduces the available constructive criticism in the Council, and lessens what appears to be the main value of the second chamber. There seems to be no radical intention to “end or mend” the Council, both parties to the Coalition having, years ago, mutually agreed to abandon the legislation, actually passed, under which it would become an elected body half the size of the House of Representatives. It was once intended to elect members of the Upper House at the general election of 1922, but the Act is still held in suspense as well as the nominative system.