The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 1927. A CHANCE FOR PARLIAMENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 77, 22 June 1927, Page 8

The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 1927. A CHANCE FOR PARLIAMENT

DARLIAMENT, to-morrow, begins the middle se'ssion of its extr a vag a nt career. It has ample scope ahead for redeeming the mediocrity of its past. As master of its own procedure, as a law unto itself, the Legislature may make or mar a record of national service. There will be no external excuses for failure. It has to be confessed sadly that, so far, the prospect of a notable session is thin and hazy. Such pre-sessional speeches and fugitive statements as the less indolent members of Parliament have inflicted upon the public have contained nothing to stimulate anticipation of outstanding achievement. These harangues merely reiterated an old story of legislative patchwork and tinkering with defective laws. Let it be said in perfect fairness that neither Ministers nor members will spare themselves during the coming session. They will spend long working days in a vitiated atmosphere and, without much encouragement, will talk and keep on talking about what should be done and what has not been done. But unless a new spirit of wisdom descend upon them and make them as Elijah, against the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal, who were all hopelessly wrong, it will not occur to loquacious legislators to cut out the cackle of party debate and do the work that must he done and done well if the country is to make steady progress. Unfortunately, circumstances within Parliament must hinder straightforward legislative construction. The traditional two-party system which argued questions out on the basis of high principle and logic, has given way to the wrangling group or bloc system. In this respect, our Parliament has not yet reached the oversea level of party degeneracy, but it does contain enough different parties to retard the real work and purpose of the Legislature. Still, each party or group should realise clearly that the country has no patience nowadays with shallow political talk, nor with party hypocrisy and hyperbole. In view of the taxpayers’ discontent with national finance and administrative affairs, the Government and opposing parties should at least agree as to the necessity for cutting out ceremonial debates. More responsibility for excellent parliamentary service is invested in the Labour Party, as his Majesty’s Opposition, tlum in the Government. It has become ail axiom in universal politics that the Conservatives essentially are the stupid party. It is their nature so to he: that is why they are conservative. Therefore, it is the duty of the Opposition to keep the Government moving forward all the time to good and ever better work. Will Labour this crucial session demonstrate the value of legislative architecture instead of practising the labourer s skill m demolition? SOUTH AFRICAN FLAG QUESTION FERE is plainly an attempt to rush the South African Flag Bill through the Union Parliament. If it succeeds, there will be revived all that bitterness between the British and Dutch communities that existed for years after England s war with the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, and the consequences will have a disastrous effect on a nation that time and policy had so far unified. . _ , On the one hand, there is the Dutch Prime Minister, General Hertzog, declaring that if the wrong to the Dutch people in having no flag is not righted, the country will be brought to a position for which he refuses to take responsibility, and refusing to allow the Union Jack to take a dominant position m the new national flag. On the other hand, there is the Dutch Leader of the Opposition, General Smuts, who deplores the attitude ol the Prime Minister and suggests the Union Jack and the old Republican flags as an integral part of the national flag a proposal characterised by General Hertzog as “an insult to the historical feelings of Dutch South Africa. The design supported by the Government is one with the Union Jack embodied in a shield, with the old Republican, flag in the centre of the old Dutch flag. This, the Government claims, will satisfy moderate English opinion. It is observed by the Opposition, however, that “a telescope would he needed to see the Union Jack,” which is apparently subordinated in the design to the emblems of the Dutch. The English-speaking attitude seems most reasonable. After regretful reference to the bitterness engendered by the controversy, the “Cape Times,” in a recent issue, holds that the least breath of party politics where a national flag is concerned blasts its national character and makes it sectional. The Government, says this paper, should first seek to persuade the different sections of the people each to accept some special emblem for inclusion in the design of the flag which shall satisfy the feelings of each section for its racial and historic origin. If the people cannot be persuaded, then a wise Government has no other alternative than to let the whole thing he, until the time arrives when the nation is able to agree. “ Better anything in the world than a party flag, a creature of politics and racialism, masquerading as a national flag.” This is good advice, and the Union Government would he wise to pause in its attempt to push the Bill through. There is very serious disagreement between the British and Dutch elements in this question, the creation of a flag that is more symbolical of one race than the other will stir such offence in the slighted section of the community that racial feeling will be vented with a bitterness which cannot be estimated by those who have not actually lived among the people of South Africa.