ABSENT MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 30, 30 October 1942, Page 6

ABSENT MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT

Overseas Representatives Legislation SEEN AS VIOLATION OF PRINCIPLE Dominion Special Service. AUCKLAND, October 29. "It is anti-democratic in character, totalitarian in operation and a flagrant violation of constitutional principle,” said Mr. R. M. Algie when criticizing the Overseas Representatives Act, 1942, in an address at Taumanmui. The Act. said Mr. Algie, was a firstclass example of a self-protective measure passed by Parliamentarians in the defence of the special interests of politicians as such. It was sectional and not national in its operation. It conferred benefits on two or three men. and did injury to 25,000 or 30,000 electors. It illustrated that, in cases where its special interests were involved, the Labour Government was prepared to follow expediency rather than principle. . After emphasizing that the Act hau been passed almost without discussion in response to the Prime Ministers appeal for urgency, Mr. Algie said that In so far as it prescribed that politicians serving overseas should not lose their rights as electors it was a good measure, but in so far as it took away from the people the actual fact of representation and left them with nothing but theory it was objectionable. Consideration of the Act should be approached from the angle of constitution, convention and practice, not from that of sentiment and emotion. Was the acceptance of a post overseas compatible with the duties of an elected representative? The Act reduced representative government to the level of farce in the electorates where it had full force and effect. If a member of Parliament freely and voluntarily accepted a position which made it impossible for him to discharge the duties ho was elected to perform, he should at once resign his seat, or, at all events, place himself in the hands of the electors and abide by their decision. No Voice In Laws. In electorates affected the people had to abide’ by laws and pay taxes in the making or levying of which they had no voice. It was a blunder of this kind that had cost the Empire the loss of the American colonies. • The Prime Minister had provided a very ]xwr smokescreen by way of justification. He had said that there had been no complaints from the electors of Hutt or those districts represented by men of the fighting forces. “That is a particularly feeble argument,” declared Mr. Algif). ?It proves nothing except, perhaps, the complete absence of a stronger one to put in its place.” The silence of a people cannot .be rightly interpreted as meaning the same thing as consent. It might be due to pre-occupation on war activities, or to indifference, or to a deep-rooted feeling that under Labour rule complaints and protests were deemed to be merely a waste of effort and time. To a complaint from the Taihape Borough Council the Prime Minister had said that the adoption of the Act followed the example of Britain and other parts of the Empire. "Are we to assume,” asked Mr. Algie, “that what is right for Britain is of necessity right also for New Zealand?” Such logic would make nonsense of the power of individual judgment. Would Mr. Eraser and his colleagues have been as eager to follow Britain’s lead if the British Parliament had introduced a bill for a compulsory 50-hour week. In the case of Mr. Malcolm MacDonald, the British Government had been compelled to the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into the whole matter. That committee had held that a member in accepting an overseas post of the kind under consideration was taking an office which was incompatible with his duties as a member.