POLITICAL GUILLOTINE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19142, 7 October 1925, Page 15

POLITICAL GUILLOTINE.

NEW SOUTH WALES ASSEMBLY; RESTRICTING SPEECHES. [from oob, own correspondent. ] SYDNEY, Oct. 1. The Labour Government, in the exercise of its majority, and in order to curb members' tongues, not only applies the " gag" freely in the State Parliament, but it ha® gone farther, and hag, introduced, for the first time in the history of the New South Wales legislature, what is known as the guillotine, a brutal form, in the eyes of the Opposition, of restricting the passage of a bill to a definite time. Thus one da v , and one day only, was set apart by the Government for the passage through all it® stages of a Supply Bill to meet the services of State. This allotment of a specified time for the passage of a bill is a far-reaching reform, in this State at all events, and should serve not only to expedite business but also to compel matters, especially those verbose and tedious members who lose themselves in a maze of words, to learn something of the art of condensation. The Government, however, is hardly likely to apply the guillotine in an altogether pitiless and barbarous fashion, and uo ©very rnc<isurc* cn its piogranißi6j for if it has a majority it is only a slender one, as was demonstrated on the bill to widen the local Government franchise, when it was caught " napping,' and was saved from an embarrassing defeat only by the Opposition s bad tactics. The new leader of the Opposition, Mr. Bavin, will not make the Government's task any easier, for he is a most effective debater, even if he lacks the personality of his predecessor, Sir George Fuller. Mr. Bavin, who might with advantage to himself, as the leader of an important party, call upon the prophets to preserve him from an austere countenance upon which the light of laughter is haidly ever allowed to play, and who lacks the diplomatic quality of getting rid of enemies, by the simple process of making them friends, will never be the popular man, in the public eye, that Sir George Fuiler was. He has, however, the redeeming qualities of statesmanship. Physically, Mr Bavin is as slim as his predecessor is robust. His slimness, in fact, gives him an almost boyish appearance.