THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1933. THE THIRD SESSION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22064, 21 September 1933, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1933. THE THIRD SESSION

The session of Parliament which will be opened this afternoon will be the third of a General Assembly that has not yet had a life of two years. The second session which was begun almost exactly twelve months ago —on September 22, 1932 —was not. concluded until March 10 last, an adjournment of seven weeks having been made over the Chi'istmas and New Year holiday period. The two past sessions having been devoted almost entirely to the enactment of legislation necessitated by the economic position, there should be some reasonable ground for the hope that during the session that is about to be opened Parliament will be able to direct its attention to legislation of a general character which, though it is certainly required, has had to be deferred owing to the urgency of the measures directed to the object of national rehabilitation. There is, however, at least one measure arising out of the state of the public finances

which must receive consideration, namely, the Bill relating to the superannuation funds. Whatever the Government’s proposals concerning this delicate matter may be, and whatever the views of members of the , House may be with reference to it, the desirability of determining the course that shall be adopted in order to preserve the funds on a stable basis must be generally recognised. The proposal for the establishment of a Reserve Bank, to which the Government has now deeply committed itself and in respect of which it will have derived encouragement from the influential support accorded to it at Home, is also far removed from the category of routine legislation. There are features of the Bill that should be subjected to close and critical examination by Parliament, but as the Labour Party itself supports the principle of a Reserve Bank there is no reason to suppose that the measure providing for the creation of this institution will not in some form or other be passed.

The consideration of the two measures which we have mentioned may be expected to absorb a fair amount of time. Of this the public will have no cause to complain in view of the importance of the issues that will be raised by the Bills. It will, however, be seriously disappointing if the effect of a sufficiently exhaustive discussion of these measures should be to thrust a number of desirable Bills—such, for instance, as that relative to company law —into a background from which it may be impossible to rescue them. There is no reason why this should happen if members will only curb their tongues and reflect that the public is not interested in long debates that produce no definite result. We are not sanguine, however,, that the temptation to talk does not exceed the inclination to work on the part of a number of the representatives of the people. It has been suggested' that the Leader of the Opposition will seize the opportunity afforded by the Address-in-Reply of proposing a vote of want of confidence in the Government. If he does not do so, he will be turning over a new leaf. This is an age in which there is a craze for the establishment of records of even the weirdest description. Mr Holland must already possess the record of having proposed a larger number of unsuccessful motions of no-confidence than any other politician in the British Empire. And every additional motion of the kind that is submitted by him renders him only the more secure in the enjoyment of this singular and not altogether enviable record. The effect of his intervention with a motion of the kind on the Address-in-Reply will merely be to lengthen the discussion to no useful purpose, and it is to be apprehended that the Budget debate may also, as usual, be needlessly protracted. The Government may be reminded, however, that the control of the business of the House is in its hands, and the country will endorse any action which it may take in order to conserve the taxpayers’ interests by confining the debates on both the Address-in-Reply and the Budget within tolerable limits.