WELLINGTON TOPICS
FUTURE OF LEGISLATIVE
COUNCIL,
REFORM DEMAND
'Special Correspondent.)
WELLINGTON, October 31
The terms of three members of the Legislative Council terminated on Friday' last, 'thus bringing the retirements from the Nominated Chamber during the current year to a level dozen, four of whom had reached' seventy years of age, one seventy-one, two seventy-six, two seventy-seven, one eighty, one eigllty-two’ and one eighty-four. These retirements have reduced the roll of the Council to twenty-two members three of whom will retire next year, five in 1934, six in 183*5, six in 1936 and two in 1937. The “Dominion,” awakening to the attenuation of the Council, urges that something must b© done shortly to deal with- the unsatisfactory position. “The opportunity,” it says, “should be definitely used to inaugurate a new and ordered policy of selection tending to raise the status of the Legislative Council and give it a more influential and 1 therefore more effective voice In Parliament.” This, of logical:
SURER REPRESENTATION.
Though there appears to be a gen* eral feeling in political circles that the constitution of the Legislative Council is not exactly what it should k. >, few folk outside the exponents of proportional representation seem to have made up their minds what is the matter with the second branch of the Dominion’s legislature. “The president of the. Associated Chambers of Commerce,” the morning paper tells us, “ said the other day that there was a strong hint that appointments would be made on a new principle whose basis would be future rather than past services.” Then Mr Endean, the'- member for Parnell, is telling the world'at large that all appointments- to ■ the - Council shoud be made from citizens of middle . age, while a very considerable body of electors are proclaiming that the second chamber should be abolished altogether. The pity of it alt is ‘ that the public is taking less interest in - politics to-day than it-has ever done before.
NO CONFLICTION
The “Dominion,”- taking a- broad vision of the situation, . can see no reason why the Asgddiated Chambers and Mr Ehdean tdioutcl) not harmonise. “The two viewpoints,’’; it says, “do not conflict and combined would provide a fair general 'prescription for selecting members of the :Council. The latter would 1 be greatly strengthened if it could be claimed, to be representative of all classes ancLsections of the ther raised if its members were appointed on account of .fitness to serve rather than <?jt the scorn of past Service, At any rate it is clear. that if the two chamber system is to be preserved (as is desirable; and indeed essential on many grounds), its personnel musf be such as to command respect add consideration' when it feels called | upon to intervene.” This, of course, js all very sound and impressive, but it ignores the great reform Mr Massey and Sir Francis Bell places on the Statute Book eighteen years ago. f ELECTORAL REFORM.
At the general election of 1911, if one may reiterate, Mr Massey, as leader of the Reform Opposition, promised that if successful at the polls, he would plape proportional representation, so far as the Legislative Council was concerned, in the forefront of his progressive measures. The o—-c----tion left the Liberal Party, in such an attenuated condition—leaning on the vote of the Speaker—that the Reform Party easily obtained the reins of Government when Parliament assembled in the succeeding June. It was not until 1914 on the eve of another general election,', that. Mr Massey was able to make good his word, and then it was embodied in a Legislative Council Act, framed by Sir Francis .Bell, which in due course passed on to the Statute Book,', where it still stands, but held in suspense by conditions insisted upon ;by the Liberal Labour compact on the formation of the National Ministry on the opening of the second year of the Great War.
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Hokitika Guardian, 4 November 1932, Page 2
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645WELLINGTON TOPICS Hokitika Guardian, 4 November 1932, Page 2
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