Rangitikei Advocate. TWO EDITIONS DAILY. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 23, 1916. INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLI, Issue 11653, 23 August 1916, Page 4

Rangitikei Advocate. TWO EDITIONS DAILY. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 23, 1916. INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM.

IN Wellintun, a few days ago, there was founded a branch of what was described as a world-wide move, ment in favour of Initiative and Referendum, or Direct Legislation. The description given in the report of the meeting of the founders of the new society is 100 brief to be anything but -vague, but we learn that ,it provides for the people not only the[right of initiating Bills|for presentation to Parliament, but provides machinery by which measures are submitted to the people for approval or otherwise. It is a case apparently of every man his own legislator. One of the reasons which seemed to have commended the proposal to the founders of the new way to reach [the'political and social millenium was that it was already in operation in a number of States in America, which one would have thought quite sufficient to condemn it. For in some parts of that country it would seem that a very large proportion of the time not devoted to quick lunch is absorbed in electioneering and elections of President, Governors, Judges and almost down to city dustmen. The idea appears to be that when you think a good notion for tne regulation of persons nr thing", or for the impro.ement of the same strikes you it would become at once a duty to embody it in a Bill, send it to Parliament, and demand that a referendum be taken straightway on tho matter. Imagine the turmoil that would at once arise on the legislation of the country practically being thrown into the political arena. The man does not live who does not feel a call to improve tho Jaw in some way or other, and as every man has a different opinion on everything to every other man the language trouble such as at the Tower of Babel would be a communion of saints to that the > which would afise in the political cockpit of all hands were called to initiation and referendum, The reference of everything would he to the people. But who and what are the people? Parliament may not, and does not, in any country, contain the concentrated wisdom of the country. But the nation certainly does contain all the cranks of its composition. A Parliament sometimes includes within its numbers men who seem tq [.believe that laws piled on laws, coercion [on coercion, legislative snarl on snarl is the best method of causing the people of a country to enjoy the greatest felicity and prosperity. During the recent sitting of Parliament there were two or three members who daily crowded the Order Paper, and who introduced more Bills than the jsvhole of the other members., combined. We may now think progressively and imagine the result if all the members of Parliament had been equally enthusiastic in the cause of legislation and in the pursuit of information, The Order .Paper would daily reach the dimensions of a three volume.novel and leglisatiou would descend upon the devoted country in such an avalanche as would terrorise the whole community. ,

Of course, the complexities of modern life and the intertwining and [clashing of the interests of communities have certainly developed needs for .legislation for their regulation. But to contemplate the volumes of the Now Zealand Acts of Parliament since the beginning of self government Alls one with wonder that a little people like ours should have needed such an enormous amount of coercion and guidance, when it appeal to the unsophisticted.that youjmight almost found the whole effective [superstructure of social and political polity upon the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount; May Heaven, then, protect us from the Initiative and Ref nm. . It would seem to constituted a trumpet call to all the oddities of the

country to cume and plague us with their ideas for new laws, and we should find—ourselves faced with a fresh dozen ortwr every day onnwakiin the morning. Where an autocrat rules a State by the exercise of ilia own dominant will, and without one Parliament-made law, it is exceedingly bad. But it is questionable if its absolute opposite, in which every man becomes a law giver, would not be worse. In Parliaments, as they exist to-day, we seem to have found a medium which,, if it is not perfection, is as satisfactory a compromise as it is possible to obtain,