THE PARLIAMENTARY MACHINE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 8187, 31 July 1912, Page 6

THE PARLIAMENTARY MACHINE.

The working time of Parliament is a very precious commodity. Parliament’s recesses are so long, its fripperies are so numerous and so expensive, its staffing is so liberal, and its official emoluments so ornate that each working hour of the machine in operation costs, the community a considerable sum, and even its working minutes havo,_ each one of them, a substantial cash equivalent.—The Melbourne “Age.”

One of the things the Prime Minister has indicated his intention to deal with has reference to the hours of sitting by the House of Representatives. Mr Massey’s statements on the subject have necessarily been of the vaguest description, but he has given us to understand very clearly that his mind has been impressed by the-great waste of time _ there is by Parliament, and by the irrational hours chosen for the transaction of business. In what way ho will set about correcting these abuses, for such -they unquestionably are, is for the present, no doubt, as much a matter for speculation, to himself as others, blit we are afrad that very little success will attend his efforts until the whole parliamentary machine is submitted to overhaul. The standing orders of the House appear to have been devised for the express purpose of encouraging drivel. Hours, days, and weeks are frittered away by members, at. enormous cost to the country, in aimlessly beating the air. In'the early stages of every session the bores on the hack benches compete with those in front. The flood of verbosity rolls on unchecked until the House having been reduced to a state of comparative torpor it is at last .possible to proceed with publio affairs. These are then hustled through their various stages, millions of money are voted, and then after this exhibition of unbounded loquacity and absolute neglect of real duty the representatives of the, people go into retirement for eight or nine months., .

The whole process is an outrage upon self-government, and if Mr Massey never did anything else than prevent such dangerous folly 'he would render the country a lasting service. Only the other day the Melbourne “Ago” was moved to bitter comment upon the shocking waste of time and money by the Victorian Parliament, and everything. it had to say regarding that institution applies with equal force to our own. The opportunity to gabble seems to be one that Parliamentarians are most jealous of preserving,. and if we would find the reason of this it is not necessary to look beyond “Hansard.” This costly monument to the conceit of Parliament is mainly responsible for the verbal riot to which members abandon themselves. So long as members know that every word they utter is being taken down by a corps of stenographers, and printed and circulated at the public expense, for just so long will the cacoethes loquendi continue to itch. Once that costly farce were stopped there would be immediate improvement in the quality of debates and curtailment of their length. An official report of parliamentary proceedings, reduced to about one-fourth the size of the present pile of wheat and chaff, would be much more useful, less expensive and would offer no encouragement to the garrulous nuisances who nowadays show neither pity nor sense of proportion.

• • • • • “The great trouble of the present House of Commons,” says a writer in the latest “Fortnightly,” “is not that the big men speak too often or too long and not that there are too many, speakers from the back benches. It is that the men who ought to be content with ten minutes take half an hour, and those who are tolerable for twenty minutes insist on forty. That is the curse of debate—the intolerable vanity of the second or third class man.” The same curse rests on our own House, and we actually spend many thousands of pounds a year in encouragement thereof. If Mr Massey can summon up courage to attack the Parliamentary bore with a club he can depend upon our most ardent support and upon increasing the working usefulness of the House.