The Waipa Post. Published on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1921. THE PEOPLE’S GOVERNMENT.

Waipa Post, Volume XX, Issue 1179, 8 December 1921, Page 4

The Waipa Post. Published on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1921. THE PEOPLE’S GOVERNMENT.

RESENTMENT against the continued exercise of the functions of government by a group of civil servants has long been manifesting itself, and the protest which is under consideration by the Auckland Chamber of Commerce against the enactment of legislation by order-in-councii is but the open expression of the people’s determination that Parliament should again re-assert itself. Throughout the war period, and for a time while demobilisation was in progress, constitutional government was unable to meet the exigencies of fast-varying conditions. Parliament would have required to observe one long session to meet the many emergencies, and, in place of this, Ministers and departmental heads were vested with power to legislate by order-in-council. That, in the circumstances, was necessary and ex-

pedient, though there is not the least justification for the unlimited continuance of a practice which the war had justified. There has unquestionably been a tendency on the part of Government officials, and even by the Government itself, to gradually abrogate full parliamentary control of legislative enactments by the elected representatives of the people by the increasing use of orders-in-council. A parade of royal commissions from end to end of the country, on any conceivable pretext, and a long series of Gazette notices, have very largely usurped the function of the people’s Parliament. Against this sort of thing the people are rising in open revolt, for it is a total negation of democratic powers, and is leading to the investment of powers in Government departments that should be the inalienable right of members of the House. There are in the ranks of the civil servants to-day men who are almost unapproachable and whose misrule is irksome to a degree. The Government has fostered a deadly system which, containing all the elements of bureaucratic control, is reacting in the form of government which the country is at present subjected to. The protest which has emanated from Auckland will be endorsed throughout the length and breadth of New Zealand, and it may be hoped that the Government will recognise the people’s right to govern themselves through their elected representatives instead of by an autocratic group of civil servants. If the Government cannot do this the people may be relied upon to find the remedy at the next general election.