The New Zealand Times. TUESDAY, JULY 4, 1922. NO CONFIDENCE !

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 11253, 4 July 1922, Page 4

The New Zealand Times. TUESDAY, JULY 4, 1922. NO CONFIDENCE !

Friday in Parliament was really a tremendous day. It was occupied by a full-dress battle of the old order known to Parliamentarians, who, like the warhorse, sniff the battle from afar. They; set off at once, straining themselves to reach the scene of thundering conflict, extending themselves in their effort in a way which has tempted generations of picturesque Frenchmen to declare that the stomachs of the horseß bestridden by these hurrying Paladins are on the ground. No wonder! The constitution is at stake; the country is in danger; ruin has begun to seize the State; every individual, from the owners of palaces to the occupiers of the smallest shacks on the edges of village hamlets, is threatened with instant destruction. That is the atmosphere created by motions of no-confi-dence. That is the reason why everything in Parliament stands still, waiting breathless for the end of the awful fight. Nothing else matters, of course; for the country itself and all it contains is menaced. The mover of the no-confidence motion has discovered the imminent danger, and the rules of Parliament require that every member shall recognise it, too. Every weapon that can he brought to hear on either side comes into use. With one exception—there is no trace in these debates of humour. That may he because, perhaps, there is no humour in Parliament. Which is a pity, for sometimes these tremendous battles following on no-confidence motions lend themselves a good deal to the humour which is happiest when deriding pretence. Leaving this exception, let us gaze at the battle that made so tremendous an occasion on Friday last. The reports enable us to follow its phases. There were not as many as such occasions' usually exhibit. But such as there were made up in intensity for lack of variety. Ruin, this time, stood only, as it were, in one pocket, out of which financial bombs were hurled until the air was thick and combatants reeled with the ardour of patriotic championship.. In many respects, the battle came up to the customary requirements insisted on by our constitution on these crucial occasions. In the end the battle proved to belong to the futile order. Nothing was disturbed; nothing was explained; the point of dispute remained at last exactly where it had been i at first. It was not even sufficiently disturbed to prevent it from causing other battles, as fierce and even more prolonged. The battle did not even clear the air, or any part of it. Ruin, destruction, devastation, oollapse, anarchy, hardship, untenable as universal these and other powers of darkness held their hands. Why? The country naturally wants to know. But all it doeß know is that the whole of that distressing Friday was wasted, as completely as if it had been given up to a gramophone grinding out one monotonous, madlydoprcssing jazz tune. Such is the way in which Parliamentarians, supposed by

the rules of their order to possess dis. cretion, treat a bleeding country. Did the saving of the bleeding country require this additional bleeding at this particular moment? Is there no other occasion in the Parliamentarian field when the motion could have been brought forward for ventilation of the grievance wtich caused this waste of time and energy ? The occasion was of the simplest. The House was asked to go into Supply in order to pay the expenses of government in proper constitutional form. Had this been prevented, as the motion of the Labour leader intended, the expenses of the Government could not have been constitutionally met. The Civil Service, in that event, would have been left without its salaries. Mr Holland’s success would have hung up these salaries, like Mahomet’s coffin, which has never been known to find a sixpence for any necessity, from its lofty position between heaven and earth. A curious result, eurely, for an attempt made professedly to improve the comfort of the civil servants. But this was the danger which Mr Holland actually faced when he hutted in to help the civil servants. A stranger would naturally suppose that he was seizing the only opportunity opened to him by the rules of Parliament. As a matter of fact, the rules offered him many other chances, none of which would have, exposed the Civil Service to any inconvenience or loss, however much they might mean in loss to the general public interest. The Address-in-Reply offered one, the financial debate another. As to others, the Order Paper fairly bristles with them, or is sure to bristle presently as much as the heart of any puhlio benefactor can possibly desire. It follows, then, that Mr Holland, by his selection of opportunity, blundered badly. As he also blundered most expensively, it follows that, as a professedly thorough-going economist, he showed himself callous to economic consideration. As he did not even gain any party advantage whatever, no one need worry himself to envy his enjoyment of the futility of his escapade.

The public paying the piping for this phantom dance cannot find any shadow of compensation. It has not even got the information necessary for understanding the point round which the phantom dance so expensively gyrated. Quite early in the proceedings, the Prime Minister intimated that he had not yet been able to master the report of the Arbitration Court Judge on the cost of living, which he intended to follow in the case of the second cut question, which was the central point of the business. That ought to have been enough to defer the proceedings until the information required to justify them was available. But nothing could stop the Parliamentary Niagara let loose by Mr Holland, for Parliamentary Niagaras are like those of Nature, which, once loosened, can never he stopped in their thundering course. May we hope that, when this gigantic torrent of words is again let loose, it will not waste any more time than it did on Friday? As to keeping the torrent from avoidable channels, that will he a hopeless proposition until members of Parliament choose to deny themselves the expensive luxury of limelight.