FEWER MEMBERS IN PARLIAMENT

Hokitika Guardian, 10 September 1931, Page 7

FEWER MEMBERS IN PARLIAMENT

CHANGE SUPPORTED

SYSTEM OF MINISTERIAL assistants:

Support for the suggestion that the size of the House- of Representatives should be reduced bv half was given by Mr Norton Francis when proposing the toast of the New Zealand Parliament at the annual dinner of the Chamber of Commerce at Christchurch. Mr Francis said that lie would like to see the electorates so enlarged that the personal attention of members to small matters would lie- impossible. The. public would then learn to find their own solutions of their difficulties, to the ultimate advantage of themselves and the State.

Mr Francis said that his first duty was to refer to the great responsibility of the legislators of the country concerning the financial policy to be adopted by the Dominion in the immediate future. The difficulties were great but not insuperable. The problem was to find a fair basis for all the help in the recovery of the financial equilibrium which had been temporarily lost. Necessarily there must be different schools • of thought among members of Parliament as to how the object all had in view should be achieved, but everyone must admire the manner in which all parties of the House had appointed a committee of ten from their number to try and reach some solution of the present financial difficlutles. Party Government had its advantages and disadvantages, but when, a national crisis arose all British Parliaments tor get party and all, or at least the majority, generally united for the common good. • A SMALLER HOUSE. “It has b?en suggested that our eighty members of the House of Representatives and also the membership of our Legislative Council should be reduced by half, the main reason being a saving of expense at the present time,” continued Mr Francis. ‘‘l am inclined to favour this proposal, nop only on the' question of expense but because in my opinion with much larger electorates members would rapidly become better statesmen, instead of never being able to forget they are politicians at the beck and call of every elector in their constituency.” The people in New Zealand had become so accustomed to run to their M.P. and through him to the Government when-' ever everything was not going to theftentire satisfaction that both members of Parliament and Cabinet Ministers had to spend far too- much time dealing with minor parochial matters rather than with the general conduct of affairs in the Dominion. After urging that the electorates be Mr Francis said that he favoured a smaller Cabinet and giving Ministers several departments to control so that there would he much more working 'together t>f various Government departments which to-day, with different heads and under control of different Ministers, did not apepar to work together as much as was necessary for general economy. Each Cabinet Minister should have an, assistant who, although a member of the Government, would not have Cabinet rank. These assistants would do much of the interviewing and receive the minor deputations which occupied so much of a Minister’s time and generally qualify themselves, by assisting their chief, to occupy Cabinet rank when the opportu. nity occurred. He was satisfied that tunder some such system the conduct of public affairs would be better and that the general overtaxing of the physicial strength of Prime Ministers; and their fellow Cabinet Ministers would he greatly based. COST OF CIVIL SERVICE.

Mr Francis said that he doubted if the cost of the civil service to-day would be nearly so burdensome with a contraction of Government departments or if the amount of the public debt would be so huge if Cabinet Ministers had not been bullied by deputations and M.P.’s with pressure from their constituents to promise support to numerous undertakings, not only unnecessary, but beyond the means of the population to he served, or if public bodies would have been authorised to borrow huge sums for works and services which, their ratepayers now wish had never been carried out.