The Press Friday October 28, 1927. Business and the Government.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19143, 28 October 1927, Page 8

The Press Friday October 28, 1927. Business and the Government.

The Conference of the Associated Chambers of Commerce which begins to-day is a kind of business-men's Parliament, and it is natural that in the Executive'? report and in the agenda paper there are signs uf the growing feeling that business and the national interest are suffering from the extension of the functions and powers of the State. One of the remits is condemnatory of " the huge •' increase in unfair State and Rureau- " eratio interference in private enterprise," and proposes that the conference '' use its influence to obtain •• repeal of such legislation as curtails •'•' and interferes with legitimate trad- •' ing.'' This is a subject upon which The Press has written scores of times, and it is to be hoped that the Chamber will discuss the remit very fully and follow up its protest against what has become a great evil. One of the most striking of the shapes taken by the spirit of interfering officialism is the vast extent of the authority given to the Governor-General (i.e., Cabinet) to legislate through Ordcrs-in-Council. It is a good many years since we began to protest against Parliament's surrender of its authority to the Departmental officials, but it is only recently that the need for protest is generally admitted. Even the Labour members of the House have begun to complain. That continued protest is necessary seems to be made clear by a reference to the matter in the report of the Executive to the Conference. The Executive communicated with the Government and it received a lengthy reply from the Minister for Finance defending the Government's practice. " He pointed out," the Executive says, " the advantage of incorporating in " Statutes only a statement of the "main principles of legislation, and " the most important provisions, and " delegating the power of modifying, ".extending and applying their opera- " tion in changed circumstances. He "also pointed out that whilst Orders- " in-Council are not necessarily ratified "by Parliament, the course is followed of laying important Orders-in- " Council and Regulations on the table "of the House for scrutiny and con"trol. He made the further point " that the general safeguard against "improper or undesirable legislation "is the criticism and scrutiny of per- " sons who may be affected by tHein." Upon this the Executive remarks that its opinion is that "if all the condi"tions laid down in the Minister's " letter are carried out, the moderate "application of the system may be " defended." Nobody has ever objected to its being left to the Government to fix the details of what is clearly and plainly defined or ordered in the | Statute. But what we and others do object to is the power of the Governor-Gcneral-in-Council to make regulations which may, and often do, amount to new and unintended legislation. The bus regulations are a striking ease in point. The regulations were made under authority given in an Act whose purpose was the promotion of competition. Parliament, when it passed that Act, had no idea that it would ever be used for the suppression of privately-owned buses. Here was a case in which " the main principles" were clearly stated in the Act, and so general an authority to make regulations delegated that regulations actually were made flagrantly hostile to those principles. A power of delegation is certainly necessary, but it should be so restricted that the making of regulations is a purely mechanical business. This can be secured by greater fullness and clarity in the framing of an Act. and greater oare on the part of Parliament in thinking out and providing for every class of circumstances affecting the operation of the Act concerned. Moreover, Parliament ought not to delegate to the Government, as it is constantly doing, the power to make an Act operative or null at will. The Government itself, of course, desires to do the best for everybody, but it is largely dependent upon its Departmental advisers, and the general result of the gross abuse of the delegation of Parliamentary authority is, as we have often pointed out, to make the officials as powerful as Parliament itself. The Executive of the Associated Chambers has not acted wisely in making any submission whatever to the official defence of a dangerous practice.