TREATED WITH CONTEMPT.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1480, 1 July 1912, Page 4

TREATED WITH CONTEMPT.

A welcome novelty in Legislative Council methods was introduced on Saturday morning when the Hon. J. E. Jeskinson, on tho motion for the third reading of tho Imprest Supply Bill (a measure that the Council has usually passed through all its stages in four or five minutes Without discussion), rose up to protest against the* Government's contemptuous treatment of'-the Council in neglecting to appoint a 'responsible leader. "It was about time," Jlr. Jenkinson said, "that the Council took some stand in tho matter." We should think it was time. But because he was so unorthodox as to claim for the Council rights that ran counter to the party convenience of the Ministry—because he dared to suggest that this branch' of the national Legislature might have a mind of its own, and rights and a dignity of its own—because he suggested that- a handful of Ministers in the popular Chamber should not go on treating the Council as a sort of assistant third clerk to the Government of the clay—he was assailed as an offender against "good taste," of all things on this political earth. He was also rebuked oh the ground that even if what he said was true, that was' not the time to say it. Truth, it seems to have been suggested, must wait in the ante-room along with the Council, and not dare to assert itself until the Minister gives permission. It is very disappointing that the "act-ing-leader," the Hon. 0. Samuel, should have, been ready to give his eountenanceto this degraded theory of government. Long usage would seem actually to have got Councillors (nobody supported Mr. Jenkinson) into the way of believing themselves to be bound in duty less to the country and less to the Council as a branch of the Legislature, than to the Ministry. The matter is to be. ventilated again on Tuesday, and it is to be hoped that between npw and then those Councillors who realise that they hold important public positions will have awakened to tho fact that the attitude of Mr. Jenkinson's opponents is the very attitude that has brought the Council as a tody into disrepute and contempt. We are abvocates of a drastic reform in the constitution of the Council, but we are far from rejoicing at this fresh proof of the need for reform. Let us put it this way: the Hon. 0. Samuel feels as strongly as we do that a Second Chamber must be kept, yet his criticisms of Mn. Jenkinsox's very sensible and timely protest are really of such a kind as, if persisted in, would encourage the destruction of the bi-cameral idea altogether.