WELLINGTON TOPICS

Hokitika Guardian, 25 June 1928, Page 4

WELLINGTON TOPICS

APPROACH OP THE SESSION

A LETHARGIC PUBLIC.

(Special to “Guardian”.)

WELLINGTON, June 21

Though the third session of the twenty-second Parliament of New' Zealand will open on this day week the public of Wellington is showing .no more interest in the event than it is in the Dairy Show at Palmerston North which it has patronised only in a halfhearted fashion during the last twenty years or so. Yet the session promises to he a particularly lively one, pith a Licensing Bill, a Bible in Schools Bill and a Summer Time Bill to he discussed all over again, with half the Government’s election pedges unfulfilled and with seventy-six members anxious to make good with their constituents. Cabinet meetings have been daily affairs during the last week or two, and Ministers’ excursions into the rural districts have been less frequent and prolonged than they were a couple of months ago. An impression is abroad that the Government would prefer a short session to a long ope, but in this 1 respect it is not going to he wholly its own master and it is being predicted that the general election will not be held until the middle of November.

LAW MAKING. The “Evening Post” in summarising the outlook for the session again protests mildly against the Dominion’s methods of law making. “ There will be,” it says, “ the. mass of amending work which now seems to have become a recognised feature of our legislative system every year. An Act is passed one session and it is no sooner on the Statute Book than it is discovered that something needs to be put right, put in, or put out, so that the process of amendment has become perennial. The legislators blame tlie law draughtsmen for the sins of omission or commission, but the public prefers to assign the blame, if any, to legislative scurry and end-of-session rush, for it is often late before the most important Bills see the light.” This, of course, is an old evil for which no remedy yet seems to have been found, hut surely if the Prime Minister and his colleagues set themselves earnestly to the inauguration of a well-ordered system of legislation they would not find tlie task beyond their resources. “ Less Legislation and Better ” is a slogan that well might be added to the Government’s repertoire. ANOTHER LICENSING BILL.

The new Licensing Bill, which, it is understood, has been drafted on much the same lines as was the Bill Mr Coates abandoned last year, seems likely to he the most interesting measure submitted to Parliament during the approaching session. So far there appears to be no great turn over of opinion either in the House or in the constituencies. It is rumoured, however, that tlxo Prime Minister is particularly anxious to get this disturbing element out of the way before the general election and that he would meet the other side more than half way in. order to achieve this end. Mr Coates himself is not very .communicative on. the subject, but with a majority of his colleagues favouring the oilier side it would not be very surprising if he went some way in the same direction. Meanwhile the Moderates arc working very assiduously and in organisation, and ammunition they, have the advantage of their opponents. Official Prohibition still is clamouring for tlu» elimination of tlie third issue and this Moderates just as strenuously arc demanding its retention. BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

In tile course of lps speech at tlx “Reform Rally ” last week, the Prime Minister declared that the Government stood for “ tree, secular and compulsory education.“ Presumably this was meant to he an assurance to the electors; that no countenance would be given by Mr Coates and his colleagues to any attempt to depart from the strictly secular system but the friends of “Bible reading in schools” seem to he in no way discouraged by the announcement. ' They still claim to have a majority of the members of the House, of Representatives at their back and a very large section of the electors in sympathy with them. Doubtless the point will he cleared up early in the session, but meanwhile Mr j Coates’s declarations iss being interpreted in different ways. Then? are : people who hold that reading selected passages from the Scriptures during school hours, with a conscience clause, would in no way impair the secular system as it has stood for years. If this contention were accepted by a majority of the politicians the step to scriptural teaching would bo a simple