HASTY LEGISLATION.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13807, 19 January 1909, Page 7

HASTY LEGISLATION.

A LEGISLATOR'S EVIDENCE. ■ The provision in the Workers' Compensation Act of last year which is the cause of the widespread unrest m tne Dominion at the present time among mine-owners and' miners was passed by Parliament in the closing days of the session last year.- , In reply to a " Daily Times " reporter, Mr. -J. Allen, M.P., in reference to the matter, said: —"This is another illustration of the work being rushed through the House in the-last stages of the session without proper examination. -The process is to send bills to committees to examine them more or less satisfactorily—very often' much less than more,—and then to bring them down in the last '• tn o or three days of the session and force them through -the House with the imprimatur of the committee upon them, trusting to that alone. It is full time that Parliament as a Parliament again asserted its rights and insisted on these bills being brought down earlier "from the committee, so that Parliament, too, may have an opportunity of examining into them. In iny opinion even the committees are becoming chiirv of honest .criticism. I have found ft myself on the Public Accounts Committee, and if you attempt single-handed, or even witli another member to help you, to criticise on that committee certain measures that are sent to it for examination there is a tendency, by the mere fact of numbers, to try to swamp you. The majority chales at criticism, even though it is honest criticism, and a good many of them are prepared to accept without examination on that committee what the Minister brings down. It is full time that the people recognised the value of listening to honest criticism instead of trying to swamp it, as attempts have been made-to do in recent years. \\ hen 1 speak of "the people "I mean the whole of the people. Honest criticism is of as much- value to the worker as to the employer. The worker is suf-

l'ering. now, but if we had been able to do all we wanted to do in the way of our duty he might have been protected from the present tfrouble. As far as the Opposition is concerned, we are satisfied to be judged by the public. We are only there in the interests of our country. We are trying to the best of our ability to ensure equal opportunities to all and to make New Zealand a great country. We are doing that not for the purpose of serving ourselves or seeking office, and we are satisfied to wait to be judged by- the people themselves. We are thankful for the increase in confidence in us, and all wc can hope is that the works we shall do during the next three years will justify -a still further inr crease in that confidence." MAKE HASTE SLOWLY. Referring to the same aspect of the '' Miners' complaint" trouble the Wellington '-' Post" says: —" We have, here another'example of the , evil of blind and hasty legislation. The Workers Compensation Act is one of the measures to '.which the late Parliament, in the hurry of its final session, gave almost perforce insufficient attention. The measure was introduced and pressed forward by Government; and the Minister, for Labour appears to have had no more conception than another of its imme'diate consequences ill the disorganisation of industry. -'The policy of the Act may be supposed to have been adopted not without a glance at its appeal to voters at tlie imminent general election; but we give the Government full credit for an honest endeavour to improve the* previously existing law. The misfortune is that the means were not accurately adjusted to the end ;in view; and we are now told that, even before the Act has been applied, its provisions are found to'be impracticable, and that an emergency session of Parliament will be needed in order to remove the grave difficulties which is has caused. . . . It is

clear that the extension of the application of employers' liability lias to be made, not without forethought as Parliament made it, but Tery cautiously and slowly. So much loss has- already been caused by the Workers' Compensation Act that, in the interest of labourers as well as employers, and granting that the Act in practice can achieve its aim of miners' protection, it i would have paid better to postpone legislation for a year so that Parliament and the: parties interested might have had leisure for full consideration. Given the principle .of employers' liability for labourers' diseases, it does ; not follow that the principle should be applied, to the whole area which theoretically it dominates. It is to be applied only as fair as. it 'is in/ practice profitable—not to the labourers, but to the country; arid only as far as legislation can made it in practice profitable, without -.causing greater evils than those which legislation is intended to palliate or remove. The idea of the omnipotence of Parliament, or the idea that to decree a thing is equivalent to doing it. has been once more shown to be pure delusion."