STIGMA OF LIFE NOMINEEISM.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17757, 29 January 1926, Page 8

STIGMA OF LIFE NOMINEEISM.

MR LANG MAKES ANOTHER OUTBURST.

By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. Aus. aririL X.Z. Cable Association. (Received January 29, 11.40 a.m.) SYDNEY, January 29. Mr Lang, iti reiterating his intention to abolish the Legislative Council, says that he is firmly convinced that the people of New South Wales are anxious to remove the stigma of life nomineeism from the political affairs of the State.' Some of the present members of the' Council had been legislating for from fen to forty years. Mr Lang, continued: “The Governments which' appointed them have long ago departed from the scene. Tens of thousands of people whom they now govern were either unborn or just out of swaddling clothes when some of them were appointed, yet these honourable gentlemen, many of whom are seldom seen in the House, roll up at critical times and consistently vote out progressive measures demanded by an enlightened generation which they neither know nor understand. “It has been realised that when there exists an Upper House with the power to throw out Bills passed by the Representative House, it is the Upper Chamber which really governs and not the Representative Chamber. When the Upper House is filled with life nominees, the people have no control over them whatever. At some periods of its history, our nominee House has acted as a chamber of revision, but since the present Government came into office with a majority in the As* sembly, elected by a majority of electors, the nominees have taken a malicious delight in mutilating all its important policy measures and in trying to make Labour legislation impossible. “ The position has become intolerable. The will of the people is being deliberately and superciliously flouted by a handful of reactionary nominees who, by virtue of their life appointment, have felt that they could do as they liked.”