LEGISLATIVE PROPOSALS.

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 55, Issue 3937, 9 August 1937, Page 4

LEGISLATIVE PROPOSALS.

IHE indication which the Prime Minister has given that the next Parliamentary session will not be commenced until the end of this month or early in September, later than was previously intended, was to have been expected. It is not possible lor four members of the Cabinet, including two occupants of what may be termed “key” positions, to be absent from tlie Dominion for a considerable period without some disruption of the ordinary governmental machine, and it is desirable, as much from the public as from the Ministerial viewpoint, that both Mr Savage and Mr Nash should have an opportunity of surveying the conditions in the country before the legislative programme that is to be submitted to Parliament receives the approval of Cabinet. Mr Savage has repeated the intimation that the two major policy proposals which are to be brought down during the coming session will relate to schemes of national superannuation and national health insurance. Schemes of this description should be non-partisan in their character. They are not, in principle, exclusive to any party—and should not be so treated. Previous Governments have given more than passing thought to both proposals, and it is a truth that the Coalition Government had its hand stayed only by the then prevailing economic conditions. Both ideas must necessarily mark an evolutionary step in social legislation, the principles underlying each being of common interest to enlightened communities to-day. Moreover, the schemes are both of a nature in their social and economic aspects that commend them for treatment apart altogether from political diversions. But, if the desirability, even the inevitability, of the acceptance of the principles express ed in them is acknowledged, the for mulation of specific measures for the adoption of such a far-reaching innovation is a matter that demands earn c-st investigation by all sections of the community. It would indeed be tin fortunate if two immensely important social schemes were written into the Statutes in an experimental and im perfect form that might not ultima tely be generally acceptable.