The Timaru Herald SATURDAY, AUGUST 19, 1911. ARE THEY GROWN UP?

Timaru Herald, Volume XCIV, Issue 14523, 19 August 1911, Page 4

The Timaru Herald SATURDAY, AUGUST 19, 1911. ARE THEY GROWN UP?

There is a wonderful amount ol meekness in the Legislative' Council, but surely the most submia- . sive Councillor, when he read the Hon. J. A- Millar's explanation of why the Coronation invitations were not forwarded to members of that Chamber, must have murmured, to himself at least, " This is too much." The invitations were not forwarded to the Councillors to whom they were addressed, as it might bo, " Care of Sir Joseph Ward," becauso the British Parliamentary Committee which invited legislators to the Coronation offered to pay their .' expenses, and the Government considered that an " insult." Moreover, hospitality was not offered to legislators' wives and families, and that was thought to be " not very nice." So the Government just held back the invitations to the Councillors. But the members of tho Legislative Council are grown up. Surely they could have decided for themselves whether they ought to consider themselves insulted; even Mr Millar is quite sure no insult was intended. And surely they might have beon trusted to go to London without their wives, if their wives were willing to trust them, or to make their own arrangements for the accommodation of their better halves. / It was, no doubt, a touching solicitude both for their feelings and their morals which caused the Government to hold buck their correspondence, but it will not give the public a high idea of the dignity of Parliament if Legislative Councillors are to be treated like young ladies at a hoard school, whose letters are delivered to them or withheld at the discretion of the lady principal, who first peruses them. The action of the Government in holding back the invitations would be accounted simply dishonourable, if the same course was followed by one individual towards another. Yet it is quite in keeping with the usual assumption of the Ministry that its will should be the only will, and its power the only power in the Dominion. There is much more that needs explaining in connection with these invitations. In the first form in which they were received expenses were not mentioned. That addition to the offer was only made after certain members of the House had shockingly suggested that the proffered hospitality was not complete without it. And there are other points of mystery which we hope will be cleared up when so much of the correspondence as is not marked "confidential" is laid before the House upon Sir Joseph Ward's return.