NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1482, 3 July 1912, Page 6

NOTES OF THE DAY.

It is not possible to do moro today than glance at tho main lines of the new Local Government Bill produced by the Government yesterday. Nothing but a very defective measure could be expected, because tho Government could only have begun to think about tho subject—if it really thought at all—a few weeks ago, when the huge inchoate measure that had been eighteen years in the incubator was rejected as addled. The new Bill is entirely different from the other, and it* is simpler only because it is less ambitious. There aro good ideas in it, of course; although some of these ideas can be given effect to by quite other means.' As the Minister explained it, it leaves cities alone, and cuts up rural New Zealand into 50 odd Counties, which will take over the work of the minor local bodies. The Counties will control the roads and bridges undertakings, being assisted by subsidies from the Treasury.. A quaint feature of the measure is the provision of "local committees" (iio use the Minister's language) for "rising villages," which will have, advisory rjowcrs only. The. Minister am nur'dy Imve little aecjiuiiil'imw}

with the principles of government or with the working of local opinion when he can make such a proposal, which is sure to make the "rising villages" centrcs of discontent and agitation. Nobody will doubt for a moment that the Bill is an honest attempt by the Government to solve a difficult problem, so far as honest effort is possible in a Government which knows it cannot pass the Bill, and which had to make great haste in order to avoid dying intestate. A word,_ perhaps, is'due upon the Ministerial appeals to the House to "rise above" parochial ideas. Idle catchwords will not do. To agrco to the abolition of existing local bodies is not necessarily to "rise above" anything; if it were, then the sublimest triumph over parochialism would be acceptance of the abolition of all local bodies, and acquiescence in the establishment of a Great National Bureau in Wellington to manage everything in the cities and in the country districts from Three Kings to Bluff.

The <ji-million loan grows more mysterious with every fresh Ministerial explanation. It was under discussion in the House again yesterday afternoon, and the one fact that was mado very clear was, as Dr. Newman_ pointed out, that our financial affairs, on the loan side, appear to bo managed by some clerk in London with tho result that Ministers know so little about the matter that tho Minister for Financc "does not know within a million what is going to happen." The fact may be that tho post of Minister for I'inance is too big for Mr. Myers; but whether that is so or not, tho absurd position of tho Ministry is the result of the extraordinary financial system that has been created during recent years. The other day Mr. Myers, who refused any information except the general heads of the loan (which had to be dragged from him) led tho House to believe that £2,285,500 of the money raised was for the repayment of maturing bonds. He met the request for precise statement by the plea that he had no information. Yesterday he produced a cable message, from the High Commissioner, giving quite a deal of detail, and this message was dated Juno 7! He also said that none of the sums that made up tho total borrowing was for renewal of loans. _ Since he had led the House last Friday to understand that £2,285,000 odd hacl been for renewals, Mr. Allen naturally asked for an explanation. Tho reply was that on Friday the information in hand was too meagre; and yet the High Commissioner's cable came on June 7. Now, really, what is the public to make of all this self-contradic-tion and dieingenuousness 1 Are his officials misleading Mr. Myers i Or aro Mr. Myers and his chief simply tho natural products of that tortuous and shifty thing, "Liberal" Government 1 There is one thing to be grateful for, and that is, that the raising of the loan at this time, when it has to bo defended by.tho Mackenzie Ministry, is having .results that connot but focus public attention upon the qucernesscs of "Liberal" finance.' \

_ Our report of yesterday's debate in the Legislative Council is worth reading. To most people it will appear—what it,, certainly . is—tho strongest possible proof of the degradation of the Council by. the Seddon, Ward, and Mackenzie Governments' application of the nominative principle. The Hon. J. E. Jenkinson asked the Council, by declining to transact business, to express its disapprobation of the Government's contemptuous treatment of the Chamber by refusing to appoint a responsible leader. Wo agree with every word he said, and with his view of the Council's duty. The Hon. J. T. Paul placed his finger on the central fact of _tho_ present unpleasant and unconstitutional position when he said "ha had seen the humiliating spectacle of tho lato acting-leader hanging round the Cabinet door to get instructions." All that the Hon. 0. Samuel, the present actingpleader," could say was that the Government had no portfolio to spare, and so could not appoint a nortfolioed leader to the Council. But tho Government could easily transfer a portfolio if it chose; one of its members oould resign. That, however, would be considering the Council at the expense of the party in power—a horrible impropriety ! It is humiliating that such speeches could be made in the Council as those made by the opponents of Mr. Jenkinson's proposal, and we need only notice the Hox. H. P. Wiqram's. Mr. Wigraji actually sought to represent that the Council should be a non-party body—that it should hold aloof from party politics. This is so thoroughly grotesque an idea that it is obvious that Mr. Wigram was only seeking to cover up his real anxiety, which was, as he explained, that if the Council carried Mr. Jenkinson's proposal, "it would be used from one end of the Dominion to the other against tho Government in power." It would: but does Mr. Wigram really think that the Council's refusal to consider anything but the Ministry's convenience will help either tho Council or the Ministry! On tho contrary. Tho facts themselves condemn the Ministry. , And yesterday's debate will assist to complete the public's determination that that sort of Council must be onded. Four of the minority of seven who stood firm in resenting the Government's behaviour were appointed by tho Seddon or Ward Governments, but they took tho view—which will perhaps shock the hacks and faithful servitors of tho party—that the Legislative Council exists for the purposes of the nation.