PARLIAMENTARY SESSIONS.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 187, 25 August 1937, Page 4

PARLIAMENTARY SESSIONS.

Our Prime Minister has announced quite definitely that the session of Parliament that is to open on Thursday, September 9, is to be chopped into two sections, an adjournment heing taken at some date in December until some as yet undecided date in February. This need not, of course, * • mean a really very lengthy break. Though under different conditions, we have had much the same thing before, and Mr Savage can advance quite sound reasons for the course he proposes in the present instance. It is essential that Parliament should meet at the earliest practicable date, even if it were only to enable the Minister of Finance to present his very much belated Budget and let the people of the country lcnow what impositions by way of taxation they must prepare themselves to meet. Beyond this, Mr Savage has in view some legislation which he himself, at any rate, regards as requiring urgent attention. For the contemplated adjournment also good reasons may be shown. The outstanding measures that are to be discussed at the February sitting are those dealing with the Government's superannuation, health insurance and unemployment insurance schemes. These are matters of such vital importance as to call for the fullest circumspection and deliberation in laying the foundations upon which the funds necessary for their continuous support are to be built up. The Government is admittedly not yet ready with the authorising Bills that will have to be put through. Indeed so far as can be learned, these Bills have not yet been reduced even to draft form, and their drawing will -demand an infinitude of care, with no doubt frequent revision. If the Government can have these all-important Bills -ready for circulation before the adjournment is taken and thus allow not only members but also a deeply concerned public opportunity to digest them, then a very good purpose will have been served. There is, however, a still broader light in which this division of the session may be considered. That is the^suggestion which it prompts that the public interest demands that in eacli financial year we should really have two sessions of Parliament. It has for long been complained that there is a marked tendency for Cabinet to usurp many of the functions that should in truth belong to Parliament alone, leading also to a great deal of what has been called "legislation by Order-in-Council." In large measure this: results from the very long interval that usually occurs between parliamentary sessions. By way of instance we may take the present occasion, whem the recess will have extended to more than ten months. Without in any way suggesting that our present Government is the first sinner, it mdy confidently be said that during those ten months it has provided the most outstanding example of the arbitrary exercise of ministerial authority in the history of the Dominion. Armed by a docile majority with legislation conferring on individual Ministers what are nothing short of dictatorial powers within their respective spheres, they have set themselves most diligently to put them into practice — with such violent eagern^ss and haste, indeed, as almost to indicate serious misgivings on their own part about the length of their reign. All this is, of course, entirely contrary to the bitter contentions advanced by the Labour Party when in opposition, but that counts for nothing. Then, again, public money has been and is still being broadcast in hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, with only very shadowy, if indeed any, authority from Parliament. And still there is no one to say them nay, or even to insist on some little light of day being let in upon what is going on. The public are allowed to know just so much as the • Ministers care to tell them and no more, and how little that is with regard to the inner workings of Labour policy and practice we have all a pretty shrewd idea. As the present House is constituted, it cannot, of course, be expected to exercise any effective control, Cabinet being well assured in advance of confirmation for whatever it does by a strong majority entirely obedient to its behests. At the same time, however, even under these conditions, a session of Parliament affords opportunity for eliciting much needed information that cannot otherwise be obtained. Under normal conditions the prospect of an early session of Parliament might well be expected to check a tendency that is altogether at variance with what we regard as democratic rule.