LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.

Waikato Times, Volume 111, Issue 18618, 22 April 1932, Page 8

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.

SHALL IT ENDURE?

DEPLETION OF MEMBERSHIP. REFORM OR ABOLITION? (Special to Times.) WELLINGTON, Thursday. Were there any real demand in the country for the reform or the abolition of the Legislative Council now would be the time for the advocates of one or the other of these revolutions to take action. In July, 1929, there were forty-one members in the council, forty nominated by the Reform Party, which had been ousted from office seven months before, and one nominated by the United Party, which, with,, nineteen members, was able to determine the fates of the other two parties. Sir Joseph Ward, the leader of hte United Party, was not extravagant in his nominations to the Legislative Council, Sir Thomas Sidey, needed for the leadership of that'body, being his only appointment forthwith. Those that followed in due course were the lion. D. Buddo, the Hon. M. Fagan, the lion. R. McCallum, the Hon. R. Masters, and the Hon. J. Trevethick to whom no exception could have been taken.

A Reduced House. So far the United Party has added only six members to the council, whose names already have been mentioned, and these additions have been since substantially exceeded by deaths and expirations of time. In the former category arc the names of the Hon. J. Barr, the Hon. W. Earnshaw, the Hon. F. Mander, the non. 11. Michell, the Hon. Sir Thomas Mackenzie, the lion. W. Rcikehane, the Right Hon. Sir Robert Stout and the Hon. T. Weston, and in the latter the names of the Hon. J. Craigie, the Hon Sir F. Lang, the Hon. A. Malcolm, the Hon. E. Newman and the Hon. W. Reed, leaving only thirty-four members in the present Council. And this is not the end of the depletion of the numerical strength of the nominated chamber in the near future. On the seventh of next month, whether Parliament is in session or not, there will be a veritable exodus from the Council. It will be a procession containing several useful councillors. Further Retirements. The retiring members next month, all on the same day, will be the Hon. E. Alison, the Hon. D. Fleming, the Hon. fi. Garland, the lion. J. Gow, the Hon. A. Hawke, the Hon. Sir John Sinclair, the Hon. W. Stewart, (no relative of the .Minister of Finance) the Hon G. Thomson and the Hon. W. Triggs. They will be followed on October 28, when the present Parliament, in all probability, will be in the midst of its second session, by the Hon. Sir Robert Heaton Rhodes, the Hon. G. Witty and the lion. Leonard Isitt. The council, assuming that no appointment is made to its hallowed precincts meanwhile, will then be reduced to twenty-two members, to be followed by nineteen in 1934, by eleven in 1935, by ten in 1936 and by naif a dozen in 1937, with the Hon. Sir W. C. F. Carncross as the latest and the longest Speaker, that has presided over the second chamber. It is time that the Government and the electors were looking at these possibilities of the future.