THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, MAY 10, 1932. THE LIFE OF PARLIAMENT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21640, 10 May 1932, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, MAY 10, 1932. THE LIFE OF PARLIAMENT.

The claim that the mandate which the electors gave to the Government at the general election last year included an authority to extend the duration of Parliament is rather surprising. The mandate was sufficiently wide in its character to embrace any measures which the Government in its wisdom might deem it necessary to propose with the view to the establishment of budgetary equilibrium. It can scarcely have been imagined, however, by the average elector that, in voting for a candidate who carried the Coalition label, he was committing himself to the support of a proposal to extend the parliamentary term. An extension of Parliament was certainly not nominated in the bond. If there were any candidates who included in their speeches on the public platform any declaration of their belief that the term of Parliament should be increased from three years to four years they were very few in number. Most of the candidates who expressed themselves in favour of an extension of the term will have had this opinion extracted from them, perhaps reluctantly, by an inquisitive elector in the opportunity afforded at “ question time.” The likelihood is that candidates who were not prepared to pledge themselves to vote against a prolongation of Parliament evaded the point as far as possible since they will have realised that advocacy of an extension of the term would not be popular. There is really a distinct lack of evidence that the mandate sought-and obtained by the Government was so broad and so general in its nature as to embrace any proposal which it might bring forward that was not directly related to the financial position. It is to be admitted that a relationship between the scheme of financial reconstruction and the duration of Parliament may now be said with some plausibility to consist in the fact that the Government’s programme covers a period that will end in 1935 and, consequently, that it would not be completed during the present Parliament jf its life should be limited, as usual, to three years. A programme, however, the fulfilment of which would occupy three years was not contemplated at the time of the general election. It has been forced upon the Government this year by the exigencies of the situation produced by a continued decline in the public revenue. The fact, however, that the programme that has been adopted for the rehabilitation of the country’s finances extends over a period of three years does not necessarily constitute an argument for an extension of the life of Parliament. It might be inconvenient for the Government to go to the country while its programme was not completed, but that inconvenience would be of smaller moment than the disregard of the principle that no Parliament should assume the power to extend its own life and of smaller moment also than the creation of a very dangerous precedent. It is difficult, therefore, to agree that the Government’s proposal affecting the duration of the present Parliament is sound or wise. The public will now await with some curiosity the action which, as Mr M'Combs has warned the Government, will be taken by the Leader of the Opposition and will surprise the House.