THE STATE OF THE SESSION

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 895, 15 August 1910, Page 6

THE STATE OF THE SESSION

The absence of nearly half the members of the House of Representatives in Auckland on a specialholiday, arranged—without any protest from the Reform party—at the public expense, is a fitting climax to the waste of time which has taken place during the past fortnight. Parliament has been in session seven weeks,.. nearly half the normal session, and this time has passed without very iriuch to show for it.. We'by. no means regard a slender Statutebook as an unpleasing thing; _ indeed, we believe that if the legislative output during the past fifteen years had been • only one-tenth as large as it was- the country would have been very much better off. But when the House rises this year the Statute-book will'no doubt be of the usual size, and there is no reason to expect that the percentage of' Acts rushed through in the'closing hours of the session will be any smaller than we have grown accustomed. to, or any less faulty and vicious. Our protest, therefore, against the waste of time and money that has been going on is a protest against the curtailment of the time during which the laws of the year will be dealt with. The more time 1 that is spent on such profitless speeches as have filled in so large a part of the financial Debate, the less time will there be for honest and profitable criticism later on when ,thc Government deigns -to bring down the Bills that it ought to have brought down weeks ago for the information of the House and the country. ■' _ . >

There is nothing very new, of course, in the Government's zeal to waste the early part of t.he session, when members are fresh, and-a good deal more competent to legislate than when late sittings, a rush of Bills, and an anxiety to go home conspire to silence necessary criticism and debate.'- There is, however, one new point about this businesu that calls for attention. We had hoped that this year the Government would bring down its Bills early. There were special reasons arising out of the previous session which warranted the expectation that the Government would do this. The .neglect to do so is'.the root' of the evil. Indeed, - it was promised _ that this would lie the case. Butit has since been laid down by certain Ministerialist members that_ tho Government,'before announcing the details of its legislation, should take steps to discover what the House is likely to approve. That this is the rule actually'followed by the Ministry has now become clear to everyone who takes any'interest in politics.at all. It still maintains the deepest secrecy concerning most of the important measures which . were announced in the Budget as itemß for tho • 'consideration.... of Parliament. ■>/c have had, it is true, the Public Debt Extinction • Bill; but where is the Land Bill? Does it'even exist? And what' 'of the Local Government Bill ? , Does it ' exist ? And has the Anti-Trust Bill grown beyond its short title? Or is it to be remembered after the session as a "strike" Bill? At the present time there are 49 Bills on the Order Paper, and. less-than half of these are Government measures. Only, a handful of these have been allowed the grace of discussion. The phosphorus Matches Bill—a tribute to Mb. Buddo's ,- skill!—has actually passed through Committee. The Stone-Quarries Bill, the Contagious Diseases Act Repeal Bill, and the Haabours Amendment Bill have been partially discussed in Committee; and that is a 11.,., It is true that Me. Massey and his friends have secured the ventilation of various administrative weaknesses, and improprieties, and that a useful little piece _ of sorting-out on the tenure question has' been achieved. . But these few entries on the credit side of the Parliamentary ledger go a very little _ way towards 'liquidating the waste included in the past seven weeks'' account.