The Dominion. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1910. HOUSE AND EXECUTIVE.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 970, 10 November 1910, Page 4

The Dominion. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1910. HOUSE AND EXECUTIVE.

1 When he was in Christchurch the other day Me. Wilfoed found time to give to a Press interviewer a statement upon the attitude. which the Government has taken up on the Municipal Corporations Act Amendment Bill. Our readers will recollect that when this Bill was in Committee the House inserted a clause providing that the Crown and its tenants should be subject to the local by-laws. The Minister in charge immediately withdrew the Bill for the ,time being, and the Prime Minister informed the House yesterday that tho Government will not proceed with tho Bill with the amendment attached to it. In the interview referred to Me. Wilfoed took the line that it was undesirable that the Bill should be lost through the House's insistence on its new clause. "It would not be wise on his part," he said, "to jeopardise the passing into law" of the various amendments of the existing law contained in the Bill by "refusing to reconsider the question of compelling the State to observe every municipal by-law." He then went on to suggest a solution of the difforence between the 1 House and the Executive that seems to us to throw a very damaging light upon the perverted standards of a Parliament that has year by year surrendered a few more of its functions and powers to the Executive and that is now, as we have pointed out scores of times, the Executive's servant instead of tho Exequtive,'s..|.master. What Me. Wilfoed suggested was a compromise—a compromise, not between two parties or two Houses at a deadlock, but a compromise between the House and the Ministry. ' Nothing could better illustrate the pass that .politics have come to in this country than this extraordinarysuggestion. To Englishmen, or, indeed, to the citizens of any other country enjoying representative government, tho idea. , of a compromise between the House and its Executive—the idea of the House meekly offering to. abase itself in order to get part, of what it desires of ;he Ministry—would appear to be a wild and extravagant invention .by a savage political satirist. And the really staggering thing is that to the great majority of the members of the House there will seem nothing out-of-the-way, but even a great deal of sound sense and public spirit, in the proposal of tho member for Hutt. Here is a Bill _of very great importance, containing somo objectionable innovations but a number of extremely good alterations of the existing law, carefully considered by, tho House—and snatched away because the people's representatives came to a certain decision that is objectionable to the Ministry. -It would not alter the case if the decision were really unwise, but, as it happens, the new clause is eminently sound and just, and essential to the proper safeguarding of the 'public interest, What is the doctrine contained in the Government's refusal to accept the decision of the House 1 Simply this: that the House may spend as much time and care as it pleases in shaping a Bill, and may by this means prepare a measure of great public value, but it cannot pass that measure into law should it contain anyr thing to which the Ministry—tho House's servant—takes exception. It is as if the hostess, ordering the dinner, were to be informed by tho cook that there would bo no dinner unless the menu were altered to suit tho whims of the kitchen. We know very well what would usually happen to tho insolont servant in such circumstances, and it is what ought to ■happen to a Ministry that thus decides that the House shall not be allowed to pass into law anything of which that Ministry disapproves. The public has begun to notice, without any approval, the readiness of the House to stuKify itself by reversing its decisions on matters of principle, and we have no doubt that it will keep an eye updn the future proceedings in connection with tho Municipal Corporations Bill. The greatest evil of this discreditable breakdown of the correct Parliamentary standards is, not that it means tho substitution of an oligarchy, of rule by a little clique, for rule by Parliament—though . that is bad enough—but that it has greatly injured the public respect for Parliament' as an institution and implanted in the minds of many thousands of pcoplo a very base conception of tho principles of government. We have been considering, so far, the discreditable-position of tho House itself in permitting tho continuance of these conditions. But we should bo leaving the picture incomplete wore we not to note that tho Government that has in this matter taken up an insolent and intolerable attitude has not even tho virtue of courage in its insolence. For when it hears an angry murmur outside the walls of Parliament, it ceases to bluster, and hastens to surrender its policy, to cat its words, to renounce its principles, to do anything that will keep it in office.