THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CBQ3S. FRIDAY, MARCH 26, 1943 BRITAIN AND THE FUTURE

New Zealand Herald, Volume 80, Issue 24542, 26 March 1943, Page 2

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CBQ3S. FRIDAY, MARCH 26, 1943 BRITAIN AND THE FUTURE

In the great speech with which Mr. Winston Churchill signalised his reappearance in Parliament after his illness, he outlined a four-year plan, for Britain after the war. One result of this is reported to be a kindling of interest in the political future, and a discussion of the extent to which machinery to effect the reforms and advances should be provided before the war ends. To this question a second follows inevitably whether the present House of Commons is the body to undertake so vital a task. It is in the eighth year of its life. Most of its members, in the crisp phrase of one commentator, were elected to prevent a war, not to conduct one or to deal with its aftermath. If that should be held a fatal objection to the more important schemes for rehabilitation and social advancement being given legislative shape by the present chamber, action apparently must be postponed until the war is over. There is no suggestion at present that there should be a wartime election. Indeed the leader of the Liberal Party has proposed that the existing party truce should continue for possibly three years after the war. The idea has not been welcomed, mainly on the ground that it would mean an unjustified postponement of an election, and that a House already old in the political sense, and accused of having grown tired, would thus be kept in being for so much longer. Meantime more than the issues it has to handle have changed profoundly since it was returned. Within the past two months a committee appointed to consider the redistribution of Parliamentary seats has produced its report. The last redistribution was in 1918. Since then the franchise has been extended to women, there have been manj r population movements, and social changes have added to the complexity of the situation. It appears from the report that at least 119 constituencies require to have their boundaries adjusted either because they have lost so much population as to be almost "pocket boroughs" or because their rolls have swelled to impossible sizes. The former type are the more numerous. Yet to bring something nearer order into what seems an instalment of electoral chaos would not be easy in present circumstances. Apart altogether from the numbers of men and women on direct war service, industrial transfers to meet the abnormal needs of the times and the consequences of evacuation have combined to alter the distribution of the people in a way that may not be permanent. If electorates were reshaped purely on the existing state of the population, peace followed by even partial demobilisation from the services and from war industry might soon bring the need for a further reshuffle. The more the position is examined, the more are the complications. The population has shifted, continues to move, and may do so for some time after the war. Representation is not well balanced now, and may not be for some time. It is so long since there was an election that no voter under 28 years of age has had a chance to exercise his rights. The outlook would be impossible for any community less experienced than the British in making representative institutions work. While the Parliamentary situation is as described, many and momentous tasks await the attention of the Legislature. The Beveridge Report stands in the forefront of them. Whether it is destined to be adopted substantially as issued, or to be modified, it stands for a form of social progress certain to be put into force. National development in [many direction's also awaits atten- | tion. Blueprints for reform are being i provided. The Uthwatt Report, establishing principles for the utilisation of land to the best national advantage, is only one of them. A Ministry of Town and Country Planning is in the air. The future of agriculture, of export trade, of currency and banking, all mentioned in Mr. Churchill's speech, is not to I be left to the mercy of circumstances if the demands of public opinion are to be heeded. A testing time for democratic government and representative institutions lies ahead. Britain's responsibility is not only that of assuring order in her own house, but of setting an example to I bewildered and war-torn Europe. ; The difficulties are many and are not being under-estimated. Yet the unconquerable spirit of the people who saw Europe crumbling and remained undismayed, who endured through the Battle of Britain and will endure to the end of this war, can surely be mobilised and directed to triumph over the problems of peace and reconstruction.