Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, TUESDAY, DEC. 3, 1935. LABOR PARTY CAUCUS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18879, 3 December 1935, Page 6

Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, TUESDAY, DEC. 3, 1935. LABOR PARTY CAUCUS

There -will be almost unprecedented interest in the outcome of the caucus that is being held to-day of Labor members of the new Parliament, not only because of the vital questions of policy that will be decided, but. also because of the far-reaching changes in procedure which may be followed. Of primary importance, of course, will be disclosures of the extent to which Mr. Savage controls the party or, alternatively, is controlled by it. At various times in the past there have been allegations that the Labor Party is under the domination of outside influences, but this belief would seem to have been definitely disposed of by the very plain declarations of the Prime Minister-elect after the elections. Mr. Savage has outlined a programme that ■ Is characterised by its extreme moderation and by its disregard of many of the proposals of which so much was heard during the election campaign. He cannot have spoken without some authority and the inference is. that he will wield a dominating influence at to-day's, and succeeding, caucuses of the party. It cannot be overlooked, however, that differences of opinion between Labor members themselves arc almost as acute as those between the Labor Party generally and its political opponents. In consequence, there are possibilities of serious discontent among some of the supporters of the new Government, and for this reason Mr. Savage's task, both immediately and in the future, Ls likely to be anything but an easy one. Fortunately, he has been elected to office, not only with a preponderating majority, but also with a body of energetic and capable supporters who fully realise the extent to which the party's success was due to the personal standing of their leader, and the great majority of whom are definitely moderate in thoir views. In these circumstances, there seems to be good ground for believing that the Prime Minister will have strong support from his follow ers and that the party itself will evolve and carry out a policy that will bo for the benefit of the Dominion as a whole. Cleavages among those who find that parts of the preelection policy have to be sacrificed are inevitable, and even at this early stage it is safe to predict that a left wing of the Labor Party will develop; but it is an almost equally safe prediction that it will never became a dominating force. The procedure in appointing members of the Cabinet is a detail of considerable interest, with an added piquancy on account of the decision of the last Labor conference that all Ministerial salaries should be pooled and divided among Labor members of the House. Incidentally, the very fact that a conference of tin? nature should be able to decide such an important point suggests that some decisions, at least, arc made outside Parliament. "Orthodox Labor believes that Ministers should be selected by a ballot among Government supporters, but there is a suggestion that on this occasion Mr. Savage will be permitted to appoint his own team, and it is probable that this course will be followed, largely as a tribute to Mr. Savago himself. The elective executive has some obvious advantages, notably the fact, that it enables men to be chosen strictly according to their ability and thus removes from the Prime Minister the invidious responsibility of having to overlook por sonal friends or party stalwarts whose chief claim to recognition is the doubtful one.of long service. On the other hand, there is much to be said for the system which allows the head of the Government to choose his own team-mates and thus eliminate any chance of friction arising as a result of conflicting views or personal differences. The decision that salaries should bo pooled was doubtless designed to avoid heart-burnings among the rank and file of the party, but it is a decidedly objectionable system and the sooner it is replaced the better. Under the Civil List Act the aggregate of salaries paid to members of the Cabinet, is a little more than £12,000, of which the Prime Minister receives £1554. It may be as-

sumed that the Labor Party will not increase the expenditure under this head, and the result will be that all Labor members of Parliament will now be paid £238 more than members on the other side of the House. The first objection is immediately apparent; supporters of the Government are to receive a. premium of £2.°.S per annum, and this will give rise to a cry of "spoils to the victors." It is argued, of course, that the work of Ministers is to be distributed among the rank and file of the party, but this does not dispose of the fact that a member of Parliament can give loyal service to the country and to his electorate without being allied to any particular party, and there is nothing to justify an assumption that members on one side will work any harder than those on the other. Incidentally, the £2OB bonus may attract additional support to the Government, but, on the other hand, the .smaller the Government majority the larger the bonus for its members. The system, in itself, is a pernicious one, and its effect of rating the Prime Minister as being worth no larger remuneration than a rank-and-file member is absurd on the face of it. It may be a truly socialistic arrangement, but to be consistent the procedure must be carried much further. Labor members of Parliament holding other offices, for instance, should be called upon to throw their salaries or honoraria into the pool, and, to bo strictly logical, all private earnings should be. dealt with similarly. The adoption of such a scheme shows the mistake of permitting outside influences any voice in the control of Parliamentary business, but the lesson may prove of value for this very reason. The Government will undoubtedly find that it has many initial difficulties to overcome, but, with a knowledge of the men who compose its ranks and with the reasoned policy statement of the leader of the party, everything suggests, that it will only be a matter of time before the new administration settles down to work on orthodox lines in the beist interests of the Dominion.