The New Zealand Times. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1922. GOVERNMENT BY THE PEOPLE

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 11129, 8 February 1922, Page 4

The New Zealand Times. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1922. GOVERNMENT BY THE PEOPLE

Democracy means government of the people, by the people, for the people. That is the basis of our constitution.,, The basis is now in peril, having been brought to that pasß by the growing practice of doing things by Order-in-Couneil, which practically transfers legislative power from the representatives of the people to the Government of the day. Under the democratic system pure and simple, the laws are made by Parliament and administered accordingly; that is, in obedience to the wording in .which the Parliament of the people has expressed its will. That, in fact, is government by the people. The affairs of the people being regulated by laws and their amendment, in accordance with changing circumstances brought about by the development of a complex civilisation, that power of regulation i® in the hands of the people who have to obey those laws. Every interest of the< people is touched by the laws, the making of which is in the hands of the people, acting through the Parliament of the people. That is l our system of government, easily understood in the light of. its leading principle. In the beginning there was no departure from the leading principle, and consequently the working of government was unquestioned. This, ot course, apart from national emergencies in which the safety of the people asserts, for the time of emergency, its supremacy. But in normal times the basic principle o| government worked without hitch. Gradually it was found necessary to give the Government of the day the power to make regulations for the administration of certain legislative enactments. That power had necessarily to be discretionary, but the discretion was kept, or intended 'to be kept, within the limits of the % statute in each case affected. That, of course, because no regulation could, under the leading principle aforesaid, do 'anything not provided by the statute. The power ot making regulations was thus practically the power of interpreting the law, in its application to certain conditions of detail of which no statute could conveniently take particular notice. The safeguard was introduced on account of some uncertainties felt in the ■Legislature about the practice of requiring all regulations made under statutes passed -by Parliament to be presented on due opportunity for the review of Parliament. But it was found that the safeguard was not as stropg really as it was ostensibly, because while Parliament meets once a year, as a rule, regulations often are in force many months without the check of Parliamentary revision. The point is very important, because Governments may take discretionary power, for what they consider reasons of emergency, to go outside the statutory power of regulations put into their hands, doing so in reliance on the strength of a powerful majority to legalise their action. The importance of the poidt was, in the course of time, strengthened by the great increase in the statutory power of making regulations by authority of Orders-in-Council. This has brought about the danger, grave danger, of encroachment by government by Order-in-Council on the principle of government by the people. • In the last few days the danger has been aggravated by a proposal, accepted by the Legislature, at the bidding of the government, for giving, in a certain case, retroactive effect to 1 regulations made under a statute by the Government of the day. The reason given was specious enough to obtain the approval of the legislative majority. There was a protest, however, strongly worded, and of strength corresponding to the wording. Against that plea of forbiddance, grounded on the general principle that retroactive legislation is- unthinkable in a community that re-

quires stability, it was replied that, in the case in question, this giving ot retroactive scope was a matter of convenience. The Government audit, which can only approve of payments fixed according to law, cannot approve of payments justly .made before the date of the authorising regulations. By giving the regulations retroactive effect, sufficient to cover the period of payment before their gazetting, the difficulty of the audit is overcome, without weakening the rule requiring Ministerial authority. But the cost of this advantage is excessive, for it is a concession to retroactive practice. Surely some other way out might have been found. Not by forcing the audit to alter an opinion- that may be wrong, for there can be no interference with the audit, whatever it thinks; but by authorising Ministerial sanction of payments to be legally covered by a gazetting which, for practical reasons, cannot at the time of payment be made. As it is, a bad precedent has been created, helping the bad drift.

It is high time to stop this drift away from the leading principle of government by the people. What is government by Order-in-Council towards which the drift is going ? . It is not necessarily autocracy of Prime Ministers or Cabinets acting on the urgent call of ' individual Ministers. Ministers undoubtedly have far more complications of administration in their departments to deal with than they had some years ago. The increasing responsibility is considerable, certainly. But it is equally certain that they have not the knowledge required. That is possessed by the heads of their departments, whose experience is the result of their life’s work at close quarters with their business. Ministers are, therefore, largely in the hands of the permanent officers. 4s the difficulties of administration increase, so does the depending of Ministers on the permanent officials. As the minds of these men naturally tend towards the strengthening of their powers, the drift- we are considering is not towards Ministerial autocracy, hut towards bureaucracy. To settle things by Order-in-Council appeals to the bureaucratic mind; the more zealous that mind the more liable is it to outrun discretion; and the more the outrunning the greater the encroachment on democratic principle. Consider the many things done to-day by ' Order-in-Council, springing surprises in every direction, emphasising the quickening and broadening of the drift towards bureaucracy. At this point one gets sight of another drift in the direction of sapping the municipal authority under the constitution. This drift is marked by growing bulks of fact. These are the annual “Washing-up” Bills, which sail into the expiring current of every session; each one bulkier than its predecessor, and heterogeneous beyond both expectation and imagination. As a matter of fact, these drifting "bulks contain what are practically local bills demanding passage in the teeth of all the precautions of procedure which safeguard municipal freedom. And this practice may be most favourable to faddy local cliques and disgruntled or designing local minorities. The grip of the Government of the day is becoming effete, to the peril of constitutional and municipal freedom. The signs aloft of the effeteness are the Order-in-Council and the Washing-Up Bill. Can we he sure that more will not rapidly be added to them in the darkening political firmament ? For it is clear that the war has added to the Ministerial demoralisation. It is -high time for a sharp, comprehensive overhaul of the whole system, to bring it back to the constitutional principle of government of the people, by the people, for the people.