The Wanganui Chronicle. "Nulla Dies Sine Linea." THURSDAY, MARCH 23, 1922. QUEENSLAND'S EXPERIMENT.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18438, 23 March 1922, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. "Nulla Dies Sine Linea." THURSDAY, MARCH 23, 1922. QUEENSLAND'S EXPERIMENT.

The Queensland Labour Party has had its desires gratified. The Royal assent has been given to the Bill to abolish the Legislative Council, and future legislation in that State will be conducted on the umcamera system. It is Australia’s first experiment with a one-Chamber Parliament, and the result will be watched with interest. As was the case in New Zealand, so in the Common-

wealth. When setting up constitutional government the British model was adopted, with the qualification that in some cases the ‘‘Upper Hous.e” was made elective. In Australia there is a fairly prevalent opin-

ion that the dual Parliament has come to be practically 'incompatible with the “machine” politics of the present day. Hence, perhaps, the Queensland experiment. The British model, says one writer, grew spontaneously out of conditions which no longer exist. The main function of the original Parliament in England was to provide money for the Crown, and the Commons and the peers made separate grants. They represented distinct castes, and when in course of time they pooled their money grants and took over the legislative function each claimed a separate interest in the making of laws. The peers, therefore, remained a coordinate house. And, following this pattern, we put our Legislative Councils on the same footing. But since then the English model has been radically altered. The power of the House of Lords is now but a shadow, and not only in regard to taxation but ordinary legislation. Bills passed by the Commons, if insisted on, may become law, veto or no veto. That a section of the community should hold by hereditary right or by any other title the power of forcing its will upon the majority became intolerable, so that now the function of the House of Lords, in effect, is consultative only. In New Zealand members of the Legislative Council are nowadays appointed for a limited period. The last lifemember passed away quite recently. But in New South Wales the appointments are for life, and the members not being amenable to pressure of public opinion, in theory at all events the Upper House still retains absolute power. The only way by which the Representative House can break down its opposition to any particular measure upon which the Upper House sets its veto is to appoint a sufficient number of new members in favour of that bill as to create a majority. But they become life-long legislators, and may be opposed to some other measure, when, if they stand on their rights, there is nothing for it but to swamp them in the same way. And so on whenever such an emergency may arise. But, as without the aid of common reason 1 no system will work, so with that assistance the two co-ordinate houses at first managed to avoid pushing this to the reductio ad absurdum point. And by acting as a revisory Chamber pure and simple the Council was often able to render good service to the people. That was when its members were appointed without regard to their party predilections, and each being free to take an independent attitude. The Council had no party gyves on its wrists, and was supposed to act on the principle of “noblesse oblige.” In Australia, however, all that is now changed, and, to quote the Daily Telegraph, the Upper House is on a radically different footing from that which the Constitution supposes it to occupy. It can no longer act as a revisory Chamber. The present-day development of modern government compels it to be partisan or nothing. Legislation is not now a matter for Parliament in the sense that it used to be. Parliament is not there to exercise its independent judgment, blit to put into force legislative programmes furnished to it by party organisations outside. Unless the party which gets the majority at an election also has a majority to obey its machine in the Council government under the circumstances must stand still. And if the predominant party in the Assembly swamps the Council that only changes it from being an instrument of one party into an instrument of the other. Its character as a revising Chamber, therefore, disapears. Such a system is obviously unworkable, and the Telegraph does not hfesitate to affirm that it does not work. But whether the remedy adopted by Queensland is the best that could be applied or not remains to be proved by the test of experience. Not the least interesting aspect of the experiment will be the effect on the Labour Government which brought about the abolition of the Second Chamber. As a Queensland contemporary puts it, the Legislative Council will no longer be an excuse to mollify various sections of the industrial world for failure to put the platform into force more completely than it has been done in the past. Even respecting the most communistic ideals there will be no dodging of the issue; the Government must take the onus of decision one way or the other. It is noteworthy that this drastic alteration in the Parliamentary system of Queensland has not been brought about at the behest of the electors, and that those who were opposed to the experiment find satisfaction in the knowledge that any succeeding Government will not have a hostile Second Chamber consisting of puppets of the junta to obstruct in the passing of sane measures, and will consequently be enabled to erect a second house on a reasonably constituted basis.