N.S.W. BOMBSHELL

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17640, 2 December 1931, Page 7

N.S.W. BOMBSHELL

THE COUNCIL APPOINTMENT Commenting upon the appointments to the Legislative Council, tho Sydney morning Herald says : Nothing more extraordinary or devastating! m its incidence upon our public and private tile has happened than the iipponimeut by the Governor of 25 new members to the Legislative Council, winch we announce to-day. It is not so much the luct of the appointments, because a.selection could bate been made in the real interests of the State; it is ilib personnel of the new membership-. The challenge to public opinion is so direct and insolent uiat one marvels that the Governor could have lent himself to such an outrage. His Excellency is a fearless man, out lie lias failed us. He lias been long enough amongst us to know what lias been involved in Mr. Lang’s administration. Ho lias seen the effects of the legislation forced through Parliament upon every part of tiie economic, social, and industrial life of the community. His study oi our conditions must have assured him that what hurts New South Wale's, as the mother Mate, must injure the Commonwealth. This would leave no doubt whatever in his mind as -to the latest burden now being cast upon us. No,w comes tho question of what lies before us. The men whose names have been announced this morning as new members of the Legislative Council have records which can bo studied in brief in Hie short ■ biographies presented elsewhere in this issue. It will he seen that they are part and parcel of tho organisation behind Mr. Lang which has been using Parliament as a mere tool in the game for power. These new appointments may place New South Wales in the hands of the Trades Hall; and our life as free citizens under a definite Constitution will then be at the mercy of a pack of political wolves. Our State Parliament, with its history and traditions going back to the fifties of tho last century, lias been until recently something to be proud of. It seems now lo be a thing of shreds and patches, thrown to tho winds. This last acttears everything to pieces, because there will be no room for the debating of issues, no, opportunities for weighing causes, and no real chance for the wise, deliberation which can alone make legislation real and effective. A law to be worth anything must be written in the hearts of" the citizens. That is to say, it must appeal to their sense of justice, and find reinforcement in the knowledge that' the best efforts of trusted representatives in Parliament have gone to the making of what has become an Act. Rut our experience under the present Administration has been enough to show that, but for the Legislative Council and its brave stand against the Government’s bludgeoning, we should have been overwhelmed. Our private lives would have been at tho mercy of a horde of inspectors, union rules would have governed all our doings in business and manufacture, and finance would have become a series of raids upon public and private resources. This now is to come without let or hindrance unless the Labor section opposed to Mr. Lang comes to our rescue. The Legislative Council, like the Assembly, may do as it is told, and Parliament will become a rubber stamp with a vengeance. But the end is not vet. A community like this, British in its host instincts, lias suffered so much already because it lias believed Hint eventually the dark would give way to daylight. Now (lmt a deeper darkness is' falling, it behoves all good citizens to get together and take counsel against a common enemy.