The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER. 3, 1924 HOW THE MONEY GOES.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 September 1924, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER. 3, 1924 HOW THE MONEY GOES.

The time-wasting that has been going on in the House of Representatives almost from the very beginning of the present .session appears to have reached a climax on Friday when the estimates of the Post and Telegraph Department were supposed to be under dheussion. The first opportunity for the exchange of flippant interjections, offensive personalities and unworthy innuendoes was created by Mr. T. M. Wil ford, the leader of the Liberal Opposition, in moving that the salary of the chief secretary of the department be reduced by £1 as an indication that all salaries below £320 a year should be raised to the level at which they stood before the “cut” of last year. Of course Mr. Wilford was quite within his rights in moving to this effect and there was no reason to suppose that he was not perfectly sincere in his professed belief that it was necessary for Parliament to intervene to secure for the more poorly paid officers of the department a reasonable living wage. Being a private member, the Standing Order did not allow him to move that the salaries should be increased, any proposal in that direction being reserved for the occupants of the Treasury Benches, and consequently he had to adopt the formula employed when it is desired to force the hands of those in authority. But the motion was the signal for the beginning of an utterly profitless discussion, which never rose to the dignity of a debate and frequently fell to the level of a commonplace wrangle. It is a pity that the House, having been in committee of supply, the electors never will know clearly to what depths of futility their representatives descended ; but the comments of the Wellington papers may enable them to form some idea of how j badly they were served on this i occasion. “For all the good it did last night,” says the Post of Saturday, “the House of Representatives might as well not have sat. Indeed it would have been better if it had adjourned and members had been thus prevented from delivering the collection of undignified personalities, trivialities, and vote-catching speeches which nowadays passes for a discussion of the Estimates. The Estimates, so far as we may judge from the reports, were not discussed to any purpose. In all that is reported regarding the Post and Telegraph Department we are able to discover no helpful suggestions or constructive criticism—nothing that reflects the mind of Parliament upon such important issues as wireless communication, broadcasting, mail contracts, or the cost of penny postage. The debate was thoroughly political in the party politics sense. Even otherwise sensible members appear to have forgotten themselves and their business for the time being, and joined in the party strife, concentrating their attention upon an endeavour to score some petty political point.” Apparently the Post would not spare a single member that took part in the unedifying proceedings from its reproaches. It quotes a dialogue between the Prime Minister and the leader of the Opposition so peurile in form and so offensive in tone that neither of these gen- ’ tiemen in his more rational , moments could recall it without ; shame. And it is said that Par- ( liament while sitting costs this j country many pounds a minute, j I The two sittings of the House on Friday ran into six or seven hours between them,, and the Post, without taking the waste of 1 money into account, declares it i would have been better had it not sat at ° n