New Zealand Mail. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. FRIDAY, AUGUST 6, 1886.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 753, 6 August 1886, Page 16

New Zealand Mail. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. FRIDAY, AUGUST 6, 1886.

It appears to be commonly assumed that the session will be brought to a close early next week unless some unforeseen obstacle should intervene. Ministers, apparently, are quite ready to bid farewell alike to their supporters and to their opponents. Members generally are only too willing to be sent about their business with all convenient speed. What the country thinks about the matter is, we suppose, “ nothing to nobody.” Some unsophisticated outsider glancing down the Order Paper might be apt to express surprise that it should be possible to get through, iu a single week, the huge mass of business which still remains on the paper, including about half a hundred Bills in various stages. He would, be answered with a snigger, and told “ Xes, there will be a frightful slaughter of the innocents, no doubt! ” But should he be so indiscreet as to press the question, and to ask tohy the session must needs be hurried to a close before its work is more than half done, he would probably find

some difficulty in obtaining any clear or satisfactory answer. We must confess we should find it an exceed- ! iugly puzzling task to furnish any good reason why hon. members having come to Wellington to do certain work, and having been well paid for doing it, should think of departing until that work was thoroughly don 6. It is much easier to understand the Government’s position. One can quite conceive that after two or three months of constant baiting and badgering they would joyfully dispense with hon. members’ company at the earliest practicable period. It is natural that they should not be very desirous to protract their purgatory any longer than is absolutely unavoidable. In this they have our hearty sympathy. Few people desire that a Parliamentary session should be needlessly prolonged—we certainly do not. But most persons think, and in our opinion rightly, that Parliament, once assembled, should not separate until the public business it has met to transact shall have been duly disposed I of. In the present case we are unable ;to discern any good and sufficient reason why members should be released exceptionally early. It is customary to hear earnest aspirations for a “ short session,” but the only grounds seem to be—first, the Ministerial argument that it relieves the Government from danger, and, second, the laudable, but in this case spurious, argument from the economic standpoint. It is spurious, because irrelevant. The country’s business has to be done at whatever cost. If saving of expense were to be the only consideration, it would be much cheaper for Parliament to meet

only every two or three years, or not to meet at all. Those, however, are alternatives which will hardly commend themselves to believers in parliamentary government, and if it be conceded that expense is not the sole point to be regarded, then it becomes a question whether the possible perils to the Government involved in a prolongation of the session ought to weigh against the interests of the public. Parliament will not have been three months in session until this day week. A three months' session is no very formidable affair. Very few have been of shorter duration, and some have considerably exceeded four months. It cannot be pretended for one moment that excessive duration forma in this instance a valid excuse for shirking the completion of the work set down. If the session closes next week it will have been a shorter one than usual. Why then should the paid representatives of the public be excused from finishing the work required to be performed ? If the work is not required, why have the Government placed it on the Order Paper ? If members desire to shorten the duration of Parliamentary sessions they cau easily do so without leaving work undone. How many days have been wantonly wasted this year in the amiable attempt to “ block ” or “ stonewall ” or “ talk out ” other member’s pet local or private Bills? It would be more creditable to hon. members, and more conducive to the dignity and reputation of Parliament if members would relinquish these rather paltry practices, and save time in that direction, instead of thus wasting half the session, and then leaving a large amount of business undone on the untenable plea that there is not time to attend to it.