OCCASIONAL TOPICS

Hokitika Guardian, 25 October 1933, Page 3

OCCASIONAL TOPICS

LABOUR'S ADVENT NOT WORKMAN’S PROGRESS (Special Correspondent). WELLINGTON, October 19. Since liis return from his recent excursion to the Mother Country the Pit me Minister has made several cursory allusions to the needs of the Legislative Council; but so far lie has given no indication of his intentions hi re-o-ard to this branch of the administration of the affairs cf 'the Domiiton. Two Or three councillers, whose terms had expired have had their, stats restored, and it is rumoured that other 1 applicants are to be considered, by and by, jf the public opinion is agreeable. It I has been hoped in some quarters that the reduction in the numerical strength of the Council during the last year or so 'would prove a material step towards the restoration of the Legislative Council Act, with certain amendments, to which Sir Frances Bell gave a whole year of toil, but so far there is no prospect of such a reform. With the rank and file of the House of Representatives being urged to put the country’s business through the ordinary routine as speedily as possible, one well may wonder what the members

of the other branch of the Legislature are expected to accomplish. The hulk of these martyrs will he well over eighty at the close of their terms, one of them already being on the spaij of ninety and others close at his heels. It is true that not more than half of these veterans are available for service. except upon rare occasions, but in one shape or another they assist in representing the sacrifices of very gallent'citizens of the Empire. There probably are as many as half a dozen hale i citizens in the Legislative Council, the I Minister of Education being a mere stripling at fifty-four or fifty-five, blit he. Os the sole youth of the assembly. It is scarcely necessary to say that the House of Representatives is not so far depleted by years and decay as is the Legislative Council. It may be Said in a general way that .during the last.' twenty years th e House has lost nothing but the of its best members. This may be due as much as anything, to the growth of a body of people who have made politics a profession rather than a pudlie service. This is not to say that the arrivals' were pernicious in any way. They , may have been, in some measure admirable accessions to the community. At any rate they quickened the aft'of electioneering in this country and turned it to some measurable, account. But with, this exploit they established a professional system of electioneering which has not- always bom the fruit their predecessors sought.