A MINORITY GOVERNMENT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIII, 30 July 1929, Page 7

A MINORITY GOVERNMENT

THE BRITISH POSITION Tho position of a minority party hold-, ing office, as in New Zealand and now in Britain, was discussed recently by a writer in an English newspaper, who presented the following view: "Wo shall probably hear a good deal of talk about Labour being in office but not in power. That is only partly truo. Labour has not got a majority over tho rest of the House of Commons'which would .enable it to forco through measures which would certainly be opposed by tho whole of the Liberals and Conservatives, But in many respects every Government is in power so long as it is in office. The government of a country does not consist only, or even mainly, in passing Acts of Parliament. What it can do most effectively is to decide the spirit in which each department carries on its work. The greatest task of any Government lies not so much in the making of new laws as in administering the old. Whoever is at the head of the Education Department, for instance, can influence enormously tho trend of education without asking for a lino of new legislation,. The same thing applies to most of the branches of public administration and expenditure. Even the greatest of all our problems, that of unemployment, will depend for its solution much less on any Act of Parliament than on the capacity shown in organising schemes and energy in seeing that they arc carried through. Parliament will have to find whatever money is necessary, of course, and will have-'the right of criticism if it shouW! prove necessary." To this it may be added that, apart from preventing legislation proposed by the minority party in office, the opposition parties can control the Government's administration through Parliament's control of the voting of moncv. Even if the opposition does not block a single bill or refuse to pass a single appropriation, tho minority Government's exercise of its power must bo regulated by its interpretation of the opposition views—unless it_ establishes a sufficiently close alliance with one group to secure" in effect a majority. In tho latter event it may have to make greater concessions to one group than would be necessary to placate tho whole of the opposition.