A PARLIAMENTARY ABUSE AND "LIBERAL" CRITICISM.

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14844, 9 December 1913, Page 6

A PARLIAMENTARY ABUSE AND "LIBERAL" CRITICISM.

For many years "The Press" has condemned the system of allocating public works' expenditure which obtains in this coxintry, and also the hast© with which the vast sums are voted in. the early hours of some fine morning near the end of the session. Nor have we any intention of mitigating our criticisms on tho point now that the Reform Government is in office. On. tho contrary, we are encouraged by the fact that criticism will not bo ignored now that an end has been put to the Party which maintained these abuses for twenty years, and, moreover, we are happily reinforced, so far as tho method of voting the Public Works moneys is concerned, by those "Liberal" journals which, after twenty years of complacent approval, can at last let themselves go without injuring their political friends. Their objections to tho practice of voting these huge sums of money without adequate discussion, in the early hours of the morning, tire of questionable sincerity, for their objections were generally bottled up in past years out of respect for llie "Liberal" bosses, who were pretty certain to resent that to which they had never, been accustomed, namely, free and' courageous censure from their friends. Wβ must confess, however, to feeling astounded that one of the chief "Liberal" organs should actually protend that tho rapid passage of the Public Works Estimates is an invention of Mr Massey's, and an abominable departure from what it suggests was the "Liberal" custom of giving several days to the voting of the money. The public is invited to condemn the "lordly " freedom" with which the House of Representatives "spends money" "under the Reform regime," and then, the ''sensational truth" is told about wicked Mr Massey. It is, as we shall show, as "sensational" as most of ■the "truths" and "facts" that are served up for tho simple-minded "Liberal" voter by his nowspaper guides. "The "truth is," we are told, "that " the House, instead of taking " a week to consider the items " and instead of transacting its business " at reasonable hours, entered upon tho " investigation and discussion of the "votes on the Public Works Estimates

"at five o'clock on Saturday morning "and disposed of every item in the "record timo of one hour and a half." The Opposition are then applauded for protesting — they never protested when their side was

in — and our contemporary concludes -with this really remarkable statement: —"Wo doubt if anything the "Government has accomplished in its 11 extraordinary career has better ." revealed its absolute indiffer- " ence to the true interests of "the people than does this epi"sode of the Public Works Estimates." For our part we doubt if our contemporary, in its own extraordinary career since July of last year, ever made a more reckless blunder than thus to forget (or, if it remembered, to misrepresent by suggestion) the facts of past years. In .1911, Sir J. G. Ward's last term of office, the House put the whole of the Estimates through at one sitting, concluding at 4.50 a.m. In 1910, precisely the same thing was done, with the difference that before lettiug members away at 4.35 a.m. the then Government forced them to go on to an important Native Bill. Iα 1909, the House, went into committee after midnight, and the Estimates were forced through in one sitting, only three hours being allowed for the discussion. In 1008, an attempt was made to commence voting the money at half-past two one morning, but only the- first item was passed. Some days later the whole of the Estimates were put through in one sitting of five hours. The fact is that what is represented as a crime on the Massey Government's part is a crime that the "Liberal" Governments committed year after year. We have said that we

condemn, the practice now, as wo condemned it in the past. And we are glad to sco the "Liberal" papers condemning it, too. At tho same time, wo must point out that their criticisms would be more useful if they were honest, for it is simply dishonest— characteristically "Liberal" and dishonest—to pretend that the practice now complained of is an innovation of Mr Massey's, when, as everyone who attends to politics at all knows perfectly wellj.it is a practice establishedand grimly persisted in by the "Liberal" Party itself. The impudent attack on Mr JLassey will find a high place in our list of 'Liberal" mare'snests unless the newspaper concerned prefers to admit that it knew the facts es to which it has sought to mislead its simple readers.