Parliament at Call

Southland Times, Issue 23947, 13 October 1939, Page 6

Parliament at Call

THERE should be no need for j the Hon. Adam Hamilton to justify, as he did in a statement printed yesterday, the Opposition’s resistance to the marketing and financial legislation that was forced through Parliament in the last hours of the session. Both the Marketing and Reserve Bank Amendment Bills were measures of party policy not wholly, or even substantially, necessitated by the war. A Government with a proper sense of war-time responsibility would not have intro-' duced them at such a time and in such a manner. Mr Nash’s Government decided otherwise, and the Opposition was doing no more than its duty in resisting legislation which it believes will bring upon the Dominion the evils of monetary inflation and of State control of all production and marketing. Mr Hamilton ended his statement by expressing gratification that Parliament had merely adjourned, and had not been prorogued. “For Parliament to be ‘on call’,” he said, is sensible and desirable. Healthy criticism and correction provide a reasonable check on inefficiency and a safe ventilation of sectional grievances.” A similar sentiment was expressed by Mr Winston Churchill in the British House of Commons recently when he remarked that Parliament would be kept in session so that “all grievances, muddles and scandals can be freely ventilated.” It may be hoped that there will be no scandals to be ventilated in New Zealand, but of grievances and muddles there are likely to be plenty. The sinking of a small vessel in Lyttelton harbour yesterday, for instance, appears to have been something rather worse than a muddle. In adjourning until next year the New Zealand Parliament is following a different procedure from the British Parliament, which is remaining in continuous session. Whether members of the New Zealand House of Representatives are to have full opportunity of making “healthy criticism and correction” is thus largely in the hands of the Government. If it is wise and has the interests of democracy at heart, it will give every facility for the ventilation of war-time grievances, even though that may necessitate the summoning of Parliament earlier than next February. No one will grudge the Government taking whatever powers are necessary to meet the emergency of war so long as Parliament remains an effective safeguard of the people’s rights and interests.