OPENING OF PARLIAMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21116, 25 February 1932, Page 10

OPENING OF PARLIAMENT.

Parliament was opened yesterday with the usual ceremonial and the customary formal speech from the Governor-General. This document has become very much a formality in recent years. It is the exception nowadays to find in it any substantial indication of the session's programme or of the policy measures to come. The speech for this emergency session was no exception. It contained nothing new about the summoning of Parliament, rior did it reveal anything about the work it is to do now it has met. The Government, through the speech, has given the House little material on which to base an Address-in-Reply debate. Whether deliberately or not, it has provided members with 110 excuse for prolonging that formality incidental <0 the opening of a session. That fact, unfortunately, does not guarantee a brief debate, for the range of subjects on which a speaker can touch is not limited by the contents of the speech : indeed, it has scarcely any limit. Yet the first act of the session having been made brief and purely formal, it should occur to members in general not to make too much of the second, not to drag it out needlessly. Of course, if the debate is to lie shortened, it will be incumbent on the Government to lie ready, when it ends, to proceed with the business of the session. It would be better in every way if members were to reserve their eloquence and their powers of criticism for the measures that must lie handled before the session ends. But these measures must be produced. Something has been heard about the Government awaiting the report of the Economy Commission before, putting the final touches to its programme. It. cannot be wholly dependent on the report, and it should have material in hand for work to begin before any recommendations can be considered and adopted for action. The two conditions necessary to keep the emergency session brief, as it should be, are restraint in members on formal occasions, and promptitude in the Government with its programme. The country will expect both, for the sake of economy if for no other reason.