CURRENT TOPICS

Southland Times, Issue 18077, 2 May 1919, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS

Uruguay on the first day of March made a departure in national government and the experiment will probably be watched keenly by those interested in constitutional processes. The government adapted the Commission system that is so freely in use in the United States for municipal control, but it has not gone the length of adopting the complete system. The new government came into being with the inauguration of Dr Baltasar Brum, the new president. It is composed of the president, elected by direct vote of the people, and nine commissioners appointed by the two houses of Congress. In addition the president will have a cabinet of nine members, three of whom he will name, while the balance will be nominated by the Commission. The members of the Commission will serve six, four and two years. The scheme will serve to cut down the sitting of parliament, which has, in effect, delegated its powers to a smaller house, but to people with experience of the British parliamentary system this step will not commend itself. There is, however, a definite movement in Uruguay for the complete establishment of a Commission system, and doubtless the advocates of this form of government hope that the republic’s experiment will lead in their direction. The application of the Commission system would eliminate the two houses of Congress entirely, and would put in their place a Cabinet elected entirely by direct popular vote, with the power of recall. The Uruguayan system will be regarded with suspicion, because it interposes another buffer between the popular vote and the government, an experiment of doubtful value, one would think, in a South American state where people have a summary way of dealing with governments, a way not provided for in the constitution, if they find it impossible to gain their ends speedily through Congress. The system, while, it does not eliminate the “talking shop,” reduces the opportunities parliament has for expanding Hansard and in these days of Cabinet rule there will not be wanting people who will regard even this measure of reform as worth some risk.

Reasonable men will probably see in the statement made by Senator Lodge on the Italian question convincing evidence of his concern to deal the Democratic president of his country a shrewd blow rather than to assist in the settlement of international problems. Senator Lodge is what the Americans call the “ranking” Republican senator. He is the effective head of the Republican party in the United States and he has never avoided an opportunity of carrying on the fight against the president, and he will be the great obstacle to President Wilson’s foreign policy when it goes before the Senate for ratification, as it must before the United States can be committed to the League of Nations. Senator Lodge based his objection to the League of Nations’ Covenant in March on the ground that it rendered the Monroe Doctrine useless, but he also found a number of other trivial faults with the document and was particularly frank in his estimate of the standard of intelligence enjoyed by the delegates at the Peace Conference, the implication being, one is inclined to suggest, t.hat its average would have been raised considerably by the presence there of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge. A few days after this statement the Republicans in the Senate by a majority of one decided not to go forward with Senator Lodge’s proposal to hold up the Victory Loan bill and force the president to call a special session to discuss his foreign policy. Opposition to the measure might have placed the country’s finances in an awkward position, and it was this fact which weighed with the senators. On top of these tactics, it is difficult to give Senator Lodge’s comments on the Italian demands more attention than one would give to the utterances of a wholesouled and ruthless party politician.