The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1927. THE FATUITY OF POLITICS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 196, 8 November 1927, Page 8

The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1927. THE FATUITY OF POLITICS

THE House of Commons resumes to-day for a brisk winter session. It will be hoped by the British taxpayers that the benefits of a three months’ holiday recess may affect appreciab y the work of the mediocre Parliament. r, So far, it has-been a poor year politically for Great Britain nearly as bad, indeed, as New Zealand’s political experience. Quite obviously government by a big Conservative majority over a weak Labour opposition, with Liberals keening their dead past in the background, does not promote record progress or legislative fame. When the British Parliament adjourned m August for the grouse shooting and autumnal meditation by moor ant fen, even the mildest and most generous critics m England noted that the summer session had been remarkable only lor the fatuitv of the Government than which there was nothing worse except the fatuity of the Opposition. The Empire, it would seem, is one and undivided in respect of its dullness and poveity o politics. Hence the hope for better things before the year runs out. It is reported from London that there is a prospect of hurried debates and late sittings in order to deal with and complete a heavy programme before Christmas. Several of the mam national questions to be considered in _ a hurry possess an Imperial interest, even affecting and shaping the trend of legislation in the imitative Dominions. Perhaps the most important measure awaiting the consideration of the British Parliament is the Unemployment Insurance Bill. The existing Act, which has been proved to have been a costly, demoralising legislative experiment, expires at the end of the present year. The new Bill aims at placing the system of unemployment insurance on a permanent basis of actuarial soundness. It is also hoped that the improved measure will make an end to the necessity of recurrent amending legislation. This objective particularly is one that should be adopted by our Parliament in respect of the Government’s whole programme of legislation which represents a superficial series of legislative shreds and patches. The new scheme of unemployment insurance for British industrial works embodies the unanimous recommendations of the Blanesburgh Committee whose ideas were explicit as to the need of eliminating the danger of abusing the benefits of the Act. Thus the committee held that unemployment insurance should be based mainly on contributions from employers and employed; that the State contribution should not exceed a third of the total ; that benefits should be substantially lower than the wages of unskilled labour; and that, in short, the scheme should retain the character of compulsory thrift. If the Reform Government he seeking an inspirational lead, it should' study the Blanesburgh scheme. Another important legislative proposal before the House of Commons is the Bill dealing with the importation- of foreign cinema films. The British Government intends to impose drastic restrictions on the American invasion gf moving picture theatres in Great Britain. The Cinematograph Bill will clear a place for British films, and thus promote the revival of a British entertainment industry. It is a drastic measure, but circumstances demand a rigorous control of foreign pictorial propaganda and much nonsense.

GAMBLING LEGISLATION

OIR GEORGE HUNTER’S Gaming Amendment Bill has passed VJ its second reading- in the House of Representatives after some acrimonious debate and the slipping out of a few truths which would have remained buried but for the privilege of Parliament. But “truth will out!”

There was some interesting “information” concerning bookmakers, for instance. Those Parliamentary innocents who imagined that the anti-gambling legislation they enacted was being enforced must have been astonished at the breadth of inside knowledge possessed by the member for Rangitikei, who referred to “a certain corner” of “The Square” at Christchurch, and “a certain lane in Auckland, as* haunts of the gentlemen who “laytote odds.” They might have been more astonished to know that bookmakers may be found at almost every square and almost every lane in almost every city and town in the Dominion. If the inability of the law to suppress the bookmaker is the only excuse to offer for presenting the Bill, it is a very lame excuse. Indeed it is on a par with the hypocrisy which prohibits the publication of dividends-—the clause removing which prohibition, by the way, is the only good thing in this “Bill to Encourage Gambling.” Despite having been carried through the. second reading, however, there is small chance of the measure being gone on with, for it would deservedly be torn to shreds in committee.