THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, DECEMBER SITUATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14237, 7 December 1909, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, DECEMBER SITUATION.

The dawn of a new political day is clearly breaking upon the Parliamentary horizon of New Zealand, after a long night in which neither administrative energy nor personal independence were visible to the most careful observer. To many other British communities it may seem a little thing that a Government should at- last begin tp study the necessities and requirements of industrial development, and that members of Parliament should at last begin to assert Parliamentary rights in affairs of State. But in New Zealand we have long had a Government stupefied by the control of an irresistible majority, and a Parliament similarly paralysed by the conviction that any exhibition of individual independence in the ranks of the majority could only result in public works penalties and in ultimate expulsion. The recent" stern reminder that prosperity cannot be insured by a " taihoa " policy has, however, disturbed the equanimity of Ministers and the humility of members. The result is that we have Sir Joseph Ward and his colleagues more or less energetically engaged in adopting as their own the main features of a progressive policy which the Herald has for years been advocating, and an increasing number of members refusing to obey the party-whip when it is cracked without good cause in the traditional fashion. From this revival of Parliamentary independence even more permanent good may be expected than from the display of greater administrative energy, for nothing can be worse for a country than to have a Government which feels that it can do exactly as it chooses to do without any regard whatever for the public opinion which is theoretically reflected and made effective by the criticisms and actions of members of Parliament. That this Parliamentary criticism has been practically comatose, and that the Government has been consequently extravagant and wasteful to an extraordinary degree, is shown by the extent of the retrenchments forced upon the Government by the recent financial stringency. Sir Joseph Ward has stated in the House that £303,000 has thus been saved, and it is unquestionable that the greater part of this enormous sum lias been saved without any loss in efficiency. The claim that in dull times there is less for the Departments to do is a mere figment of excuse. If we allow for retrenchments of this character and for the withholding of expenditure which would have become part of the tangible assets of the Dominion, we have still a vast sum which could have been saved at any time by an economical administration. The charge of extravagance in administration has been brought against the Government a hundred times by Opposition and independent critics, and 'the Government has a hundred times

retorted that such charges were malicious, and that those who clamoured for roads and railways should bo the last to make them. Yet by its own act of retrenchment the Government stands self-confessed of gross extravagance in the past, while the silent members who have suddenly become critical have nothing to boast of in their own records. At the present time, howeverand" we hope it will be .so for years to come—members are individually illdisposed to form units in a silent and submissive majority. Until recently, when Parliament was in session, members knew nothing of what might happen until the Cabinet disclosed its determinations and demanded endorsement. It is the Cabinet itself which now knows nothing of what may happen, and we can quite understand that the unexpected discovery that the House is, after all, a potential tribunal, is not grateful to Ministers, conscious of- being more deserving of support than they have been for many a long year. The fatted calf is not being killed for this repentant prodigal son. Instead, we have the House bluntly and decisively objecting to the employment of Mr. Reeves as financial adviser to a costly and wellstaffed High Commissioner's Office, an objection which the country must approve though without any depreciation of that gentleman's notable literary qualifications. Again, we have the Minister for Education talking his own Bill to a standstill in order to prevent the House defying the Council, against his advice, on behalf of the Friendly Societies. Again, we have the House refusing to penalise non-guaranteed city loans by placing all sinking funds at low interest in the hands of the Public Trustee, as provided in the so-called State Guaranteed Loans Bill. And, again, we have the House stubbornly refusing to accept the official declaration that things are all right in a financial department scandal, where some things seem to have been very wrong. In this last matter, we regret to see that Sir Joseph Ward does not realise that Parliament has an absolute rightwithout any violation of Departmental good faith— assure itself that its own servants are above suspicion, and that its own enactments are being carried out as it intended them to be carried out. His resistance is obviously due to the bad habit of ignoring and ! despising Parliamentary rights which became established in the Ministerial mind during a long period of Parliamentary subserviency. The House will doubtless make mistakes in re-establishing its authority just as Mr. Massey has made mistakes in the long and desperate battle which he has waged on behalf of Parliamentary control over Ministerial action. But it will be generally right, and the result will be wholly good. It is not necessary to agree with the incidence of every specified case of Parliamentary revolt against administrative dictation to recognise that the sole hope for sound government lies in fearless Parliamentary criticism, and that unless members set duty to country above duty to party, every democratic principle must be ultimately sacrificed and democratic government made a delusion and a share.