The New Zealand Times TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 1926. THE VOTE THAT DISAPPEARED

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12354, 26 January 1926, Page 6

The New Zealand Times TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 1926. THE VOTE THAT DISAPPEARED

Mr J. T. Lang provided a sharp knife for ending the life of the New South Wales Upper House, but the throat or that legislative sheep is still intact. When he swamped the Council with members pledged to abolish the revisory Chamber, the Labour Premier no doubt thought the job as good as done. He and his Attorney-General had figured the problem out to a nicety. Appoint so many extra councillors, and the rest would be a mere formality. But Mr Lang has discovered that it was not so simple as all that. A hitch developed in the programme. It was a case of the Premier proposes, but Mr “X” disposes. Mr “X” is the gentleman whose vote was to ensure the passage of the Bill of abolition. At the crucial moment, or prior to the crucial moment, Mr “X” suddenly became seized with the necessity for having a holiday. He could scarcely plead an attack of nerves or physical exhaustion following on the performance of trying Parliamentary duties. So far as has been cabled, he raised no plea, offered no excuse whatever for thus disappearing. He stood not upon the order of his going, but went. It was an anti-climax which the Government could not conceivably have expected., It took the disappearance with a seriousness which reads Gilbertian at this distance. When Mr “X” was found to be missing, the detective force and the police were commissioned to ascertain his whereabouts. It is, surely, as rich a farce of its kind as ever happened. If the pursuit had not been successful, imagine the Premier’s concern and the Attorney-Gene-ral’s chagrin! One way out of the tangle would have been to appoint the disappointed' Randwick bookmaker in the place of the fugitive. However, that desperate expedient has not been necessary. Mr “X” was located at a health resort, and when tracked down, lodged a stout protest against the intervention of the police. Probably Mr Lang sees nothing undignified in all this. He appears to be a singularly individual, who could never paint a frank self-portrait of himself. Apart from the Mr “X” incident, his lack of humour is shown by his insistence on the claim that he held a mandate from the people to wipe out the Upper House. Of course, if that is merely a pose, he must be put down as the most brazen of charlatans. Abolition of the Council is a plank in the platform of the party; but most decidedly it was not an issue at the elections, and Mr Lang knows it. Perhaps the most discreditable feature of the whole sorry business is what has justly been termed the “gold-pass bribe/’ For doing no more than sit in the Council sufficiently long to vote it out of existence, the new appointees are to receive a? gold pass which will “frank” them on the State railways until the end of their days.

The Attorney-General professed great indignation with the Opposition for calling this spade a spade, but there is no other'name for it. The gold pass is payment for services rendered; services to the party in power, and disservice to the country. It is a splendid example of Tammany or the “Boss” Croker method of governing. It takes modem Labour to perpetrate these rather shameless things and to defend them with glib hypocrisy. Lang, and Co. are sharpening a keen blade for their own political necks.