Indiscriminate.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 860, 24 August 1888, Page 28

Indiscriminate.

It would be mere affectation to pretend that we are either surprised or

pleased at the announcement made by the Premier on Monday with regard to the business which the Government intended to go on with this session. That there would be an extensive “slaughter of the innocents” had long been a foregone conclusion. Sir Harry Atkinson always has been a : veritable Herod toward these legislaI tive victims, and there was every reason to anticipate that on the present occasion he would revel even more lavishly than ever in the indulgence of his billicidal inclinations. Some victims, indeed, had been already by general consent inscribed on that “ little list ” of measures that would “ not be missed,” and others belonged to the class of game that improves by keeping. Among the latter is the Electoral Bill, which can quite well- stand over till next year. Some weeks ago we stated that the Government would abandon this Bill for the present session. Our statement was promptly contradicted in several newspapers in various parts of the Colony, with gratuitous rudeness in the manner of contradiction. We took no notice, and were content to await the verification of our assertion by the event. That has come. The Electoral Bill was discharged from the Order Paper on Monday oa the motion of the Premier. It will probably be re-introduced early next session, when we hope it will have better fortune. But although no harm is done by holding over that Bill for a year, the case is very different as regards some others of the Government measures. Prominent among these are the Disorderly Houses Suppression Bill and the Offences Against the Person Bill. Both of these measures are admittedly required most pressinglv in the interests of public morality and decency and order. The raising of the age of consent to 16, as provided by the latter Bill, has been clearly proved to be imperatively necessary on urgent social grounds, and there were several other very desirable and useful provisions. Even more urgent is the need of some simple and practicable mode of dealing with the crying nuisance of disorderly houses, now become well nigh intolerable in all the chief cities in the Colony, and perhaps above all in Wellington. 11 is notorious as a matter of experience that these dens of vico are at present virtually beyond the reach of the law, and respectable residents in their neighbourhood are subjected to grievous annoyance and inconvenience without any redress being accessible, while property in the vicinity of such places is appreciably deteriorated in value. These infamous houses, too, are often owned by persons ostensibly of good repute, who, however, deliberately let their houses to be used for immoral purposes,anddraw higher rent for them on that very account. The Bill brought in by the Government furnished what appeared a simple and straightforward method of procuring the abatement of the nuisance. No validreason has been given forabandoning this measure. It could easily have been carried through had the Government been in earnest. Supposing these two Bills had occupied two days, or three, or even a week —why should they not ? Why should not so much time have been devoted to them ? Members are elected and paid to do such business as may be needed, and it is most discreditable that, merely for the sake of getting away a day or two earlier, they should shelve these important measures. We shall rejoice as heartily as members themselves to see this long and dreary session brought to a close, but we do not see upon what grounds can be defended the practice of closing the Parliamentary session when so much necessary work still remains undone. Parliament ought to sit until at least the principal business which it has been convened to deal with has been got through. The fact that certain of its members have wilfully wasted time and obstructed progress is nothing to the point. The completion of the business is none the less necessary, and it is in the House’s own power to prevent the recurrence of such obstruction. If members will not consent to take the needful steps in this direction they ought at least not to shirk the consequences of their neglect, and to devolve these on to the shoulders of the public. The action of the Government in voluntarily and needlessly abandoning some much-war. {■■‘•d Bills is, in our opinion, wholi' iudoSensible.