MINISTERS ABROAD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24912, 11 May 1942, Page 4

MINISTERS ABROAD

The factithat legislation has already been passed this session protecting the interests,of the members of the Government who have been appointed to diplomatic offices abroad should not deter Parliament from discussing more fully than it has yet done the question of the overseas representation of the country. The question will be not more ripe for discussion when Parliament resumes next month than it was last week, for the logical sequence to the appointment of a Resident Minister in the United States and of a High Commissioner in Canada will be the appointment of a High Commissioner in Australia if not also the appointment of a Resident Minister in Great Britain who will probably supersede the High Commissioner in London. The legislation to which we have referred preserves Mr Nash and Mr Langstone from disqualification as members of Parliament by reason of their being in receipt of salaries or grants as overseas representatives of the Dominion and also preserves their electoral privileges despite the loss of their residential qualifications. No reasonable objection could be raised to the enactment of provisions of this description, accompanied as they necessarily are by a disallowance of the receipt of emoluments as Ministers of the Crown in New Zealand by these holders of diplomatic appointments. Yet there are principles involved in these appointments to which consideration was not given during the brief discussion on the matter in the Lower House. It may be surmised that if there had been any expectation in the House that the nine or ten months' leisure of Mr Langstone, at the public expense, in the United States, would have been crowned by his appointment as High Commissioner in Canada, comment would not have been lacking. This raises one of the points to which attention should be directed. It is a point that was emphasised in the House of Commons in the course of the discussion on a Bill to regularise the appointment of Mr Malcolm MacDonald as 'High Commissioner in Canada, namely that the opinion is strongly expressed among all sorts and conditions of men and women that they do not want to be represented by a member who cannot look after their interests in Parliament. Though a policy under which constituencies are disfranchised may be deliberately adopted in circumstances of emergency it is not one that can generally meet with anything like approval for it means simply that so many electors are deprived of their constitutional right of representation. And, in its effect upon Parliament and the Government, it may involve a diminution of their critical and administrative ability—as it must do in the present instance in the case of Mr Nash if probably not so in the case of Mr Langstone—and consequently lead to a diminution of the claim of these political institutions upon the public esteem. Plainly there are considerations connected with the appointment of members of the Government to offices overseas that merit attention.