SAVING N.S.W.

Waikato Times, Volume 110, Issue 18394, 30 July 1931, Page 10

SAVING N.S.W.

CONSTITUTIONAL ASPECT. HOW MR SCULLIN COULD ACT. Mr W. A. Holman, K.C., writes in the Sydney Sun — Within nine months Mr Lang has brought upon us three successive financial disasters —the childish “Repudiation” scheme and the ruin of the Savings Bank have now found a fitting climax in the mendicant attitude into which he has thrown the whole State. , , , It is not now that the bondholders are to be cheated or the Savings Bank depositors ruined, but that New South Wales itself is in beggary and “cadges” shamelessly from its poorer sisters. The situation is ruinous, dangerous, intolerable. The richest Slate in Australia, in whose whole history such things are unknown, has reached this level in one year of Mr Lang's rule. Simple Way Out. Two constitutional remedies for his outrageous development suggest themselves. The first arid simplest would ho that Mr Scullin should demand, in return for financial aid, that the State Parliament should refer, for a term of years, Hie whole State administration to the Commonwealth, under Section 51 (sub-section 37) of the Constitution, to be carried out by a Federal Commission. The Commisison, after clearing up the Augean stable, could conduct an election for the Lower House, resummon the councillors to the other, and re-commence Parliamentary Government after a salutary interval. This method would involve to period of chaos. The Federal Government could begin next week. Reforms would also begin. And when the time was ripe we could commence again to govern ourselves in an atmosphere freshened and purified. Council Could Act. The alternative would be for the Legislative Council to exercise its power of veto. The Premier gained no mandate at the last election to repudiate, to close the Savings Bank, or to beg money for daily needs from the Fderal Government. In these circumstances the Upper House would be well within its rights In refusing all Supply. No officer of tho Treasury dare pay out what public money there Is without the authorisation of the appropriate Acts, and in a few weeks Government would be brought to a standstill. Some measure of confusion, and perhaps of bitter turmoil, would follow, but would effect nothing. The publio services would not bo paid for some weeks, but the individual officers would understand that it was suspension and not confiscation that they were experiencing, and would, in most cases, bear it loyally. Mr Lang’s only resource would be to ask the Governor for additional Legislative Councillors, and llis Excellency could (and almost certainly would) quite properly refuse to grant them until an election had proved that the people supported Mr Lang’s policy. The matter would thus be brought, by constitutional steps, before the people for decision. The writer fully appreciates the difficulties of leadership, and has never urged any undue concentration of public fury upon a single head. But here every"disaster has been the work of one man. No Premier has ever had a more pliant Cabinet or a more united following, while the support accorded by his organisation has been unstinted.

He has used these advantages not to magnify his office, but to debase it to the level of a “sturdy beggar.” Where a few months hack he swaggered, he now cringes; he is in retreat from every position he once occupied, and every principle he affirmed. lie iias had to go cap In hand to his hitter enemies of half a year ago, and where lie grovels in the dust we unhappily are trailed after him.