STILL ANOTHER PARADOX

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21807, 23 May 1934, Page 15

STILL ANOTHER PARADOX

Sir, —Last session Mr. Coates said he was a champion for. democracy. At Blenheim, on Thursday, he said: "When the Government had to pass through a difficult period they could not leave it for half-a-dozen to handle." Thus overboard goes his Cabinet. Evidently his colleagues simply don't count. Ho proceeded to say: "It must be for one man to take his courage in his hands and fix his mind on an objective that he deoided would supply the solution and to march steadily to that objective." Thus overboard goes the Government party and Parliament and all. Yet, strangely enough, simultaneous with that arrogant statement by Mr. Coates, Mr. Forbes notifies every member that Parliament is summoned for June 28. If taken seriously, Mr. Coates has offered a gratuitous insult to every member of the Parliament party by assuming and declaring for thpm only contempt. If he is right, why call Parliament together at all? Why consult, or make a miserable pretence of consulting, tho elected representatives of the people on tho people's business? If only one man —nncl that man is Mr. Coates—is to decide all things, great and small, why not at once end the costly farce of paying a Prime Minister and other Ministers of the Crown and officers of departments, and members of Parliament? Mr. Coates' utterance make the whole thing farcical in the extreme. His official judgment in the past has so often been disastrous to the country that tho Dominion will not be content to leavo matters with him. If Parliament does not assert itself early and definitely against such flagrant negation of its high responsibilities and usurpation of its representative functions it will meiit the contumely heaped upon it. A. J. Stai.lwohthv.