Evening Post. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1940. BY REGULATION

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 86, 8 October 1940, Page 6

Evening Post. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1940. BY REGULATION

Parliament has (been promised an opportunity to debate the War and Emergency Regulations. The subject calls for a direct expression of opinion, for there has been a marked anovement towards the centralising of all power and authority in the hands of the executive Government. War,

of course, necessitates some movement in this direction. Promptitude in action and the elasticity needed to cope with changing situations, both dictate a curtailment of the privileges of the Legislature and an enlargement of the powers of the Government. Democracy accepts this necessity and voluntarily sanctions a temporary dictatorship in order that it may fight dictatorship from without. The New Zealand Parliament did this in the first days of the war. With little debate and with no protest against the principle the House of Representatives gave to the Government authority to do anything and everything that the war situation demanded. Practically no limit was set to the powers.

■ The very width of the powers given, however, imposes on the Government an obligation to exercise the greatest discretion in their use. In particular' there is an obligation not to use the power to govern by Order in Council when it is possible to refer the question to Parliament. We may take as an instance of what should not be done by Order in Council the issue of the compulsory war loan. It cannot be pleaded that there was lack |of (time or opportunity to submit this to Parliament., Parliament, was sitting and adjourning from time to time when the question first arose. There was no reason whatever against embodying the proposals in a Finance Bill and allowing Parliament to discuss them before they became law. Discussion afterwards is no adequate substitute for this prior consideration. When compulsory borrowing was resorted to in the Great War the ierms and conditions were set out in considerable detail in Finance Bills. Parliament had the opportunity to discuss the general principle and its application in detail and, subject to the Government's right in dealing with financial measures, to reject the proposals. The; Leader of the Opposition referred to this matter in the debate on war finance. Where he found reason for criticism, he said, was in the fact that this Government's war loan had not come before Parliament in the form of a Bill. Too much use should not be made of Orders in Council, Mr. Hamilton contended, and if the Minister of Finance had brought in a Bill to authorise the compulsory loan, instead of asking the House to discuss a regulation, he could have heard opinions on the terms of which he might have been inclined to take notice. The loan was mentioned in the Budget, but the terms were merely sketched, and it is upon the terms, more than the general principle, that the gravest differences of opinion arise.

This, however, is just one instance. I Regulations have been issued dealing I with many public and private activities—with industry and production, with trade, and with the use of manpower. In some cases it has been necessary to use the regulation form in order to save time. In others it has been desix-able to set out in j regulations details which could not| have been conveniently framed and amended in statute form. But allow-j ing for these exceptions, it is evident that the tendency has been, not to return to Parliament for decisions on questions of moment, but to use to the full the general authority given iby the Legislature. Government by ! regulation has been preferred and one cannot escape the suspicion that the preference has been influenced by reluctance on the part of some Ministers to accept guidance and a desire to maintain and extend the individual right of decision. Parliament must watch this, for we have not accepted dictatorship save for the war and to the extent that the war necessitates. We do not want .to wake up and find that we have established a sort of customary oligarchy that it will be hard to break down.