WAR REGULATIONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22328, 31 July 1934, Page 8

WAR REGULATIONS

The memory of the public will have become distinctly hazy concerning the details of special legislation enacted during the war period, and still lingering on the statute book in the shape of. War Regulation Acts. The remarkable thing is perhaps that this legislation should have survived for more than a decade and a-half after the termination of the Great War and the state of emergency which furnished its justification. Its continued existence may have troubled the community very little, but no self-respecting citizen will exactly cherish the thought of his liability to be called upon to explain his unwitting infringement of some forgotten war-period enactment. The war regulations represented emergency legislation, and in now proposing that they shall be abolished the Government is not likely to be accused of coming to a hasty decision. The War Regulations Repeal Bill provides that all war regulations shall be revoked, but the Government being of opinion that what it describes as " certain matters of public importance" which are now dealt with by way of such regulations should be provided for in permanent legislation, three separate Bills are to pave the way for the repealing measure so that the continuity of the substance of the law, to use the legal phrase, may not be disturbed. These matters of public importance form the subject of the Passports Bill, the Harbours Amendment Bill, and the Police Offences Amendment Bill. Those who sigh for the good old days when travel was simplified by the absence of any need to go to the trouble of procuring passports and of producing them when demanded must continue to do so. The production of passports by persons entering New Zealand from overseas is still to be required. It is not that New Zealand does not welcome the stranger within her gates, especially if he comes on admiration bent. But the Government regards it as still desirable to have some definite assurance as to the identity and credentials of those who enter the Dominion, and it may be conceded that, since these are troubled times, marked by uncertainty and considerable unrest and disturbance throughout the world, there is a case for the perpetuation of such safeguards as the passport system may provide against the intrusion of undesirables. In the Harbours Bill a not uninteresting reminder is offered of authority which the Government actually possesses and proposes to retain in respect of Harbour Board property. It will legislatively confirm the Government's right to declare any wharf to be a Government wharf, and to assume control of, and to close, it if it deems necessary, as well as to employ on it the labour required and to punish interfei-ence therewith. The circumstances in which the Government might deem it necessary to exercise such powers are left to the imagination, but clearly legislation against possible emergency is indicated. The Police Offences Bill gives the Government authority to declare any industry which it considers essential for the public welfare to be an " essential industry," and to take punitive proceedings against any person who is party to a seditious strike or lock-out in relation to such an industry, and against any person who is concerned in the circulation of documents inciting or encouraging violence, lawlessness, or disorder, or expressing any seditious intention. It must have been against this Bill that, as is reported in our telegrams this morning, a university lecturer in Auckland has been inveighing. It is somewhat unfortunate for his argument that the , provisions which, in his judgment, arc calculated to foment rebellion are now j in operation and have been in operation ever since the war, without produc- . ing the terrible consequences that are contemplated by him.