PUBLIC OPINION.

Hokitika Guardian, 31 March 1927, Page 3

PUBLIC O PI N I ON.

THE MENTALITY OE PARLIAMENT “ Doubtless Mr Eirroll is light in suggesting that the present House of Commons reflects tbe general miuldlebeadeilness of the constituencies. The House certainiV offers a singular spectacle, whether we consider its electoral basis or its mentality. It evidently contains few. if any. members of wide and commanding outlook. Though some able speakers make themselves heard at times in the Chamber, though too, a singular personal charm attaches to Mr Baldwin himself, it is nolle the less true, unl'ortunateiy. that the House is curiously flat, stale, and unprofitable; that it is no place ol light and leading. Until, and unless, political leaders and their foh'owers empty their minds of the strange mixture of sectional realism, sentiment, and visionariness. which too frequently passes with them for political ideas, we shall never regain the rationality which renders the politics of laird Morley’s period so absorbingly interesting, especially when their vicissitudes happen to be related by him.”—Liverpool -'Post.” AN IMPERIAL NEED. ‘lt was ail-imp'ftaut that when the Prime Ministers of these Dominions met together last November they should, singly and severally, in their collective capacity, as well a.s their private caoacity, give their great authority to what we in this country have long believed to he the Due doctrine of equality of status. I think this is a verv great and vital stage in Empire building. There was another doctrine, less important, hut which, 1 think, b formulating, and which, so far as f am aware, lias never been formulated until a few- a very few—weeks or months ago. And it is this, that while for all time the status of these, autonomous members of the British Empire is identical. there is. and must be. a differential function Tt must be that to one of these Dominions should be entrusted a leading part, let us say. in diplomacy. a leading part in the organisation of defence.”' Lord Balfour, at Edinburgh University.