Loaded Legislation

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 423, 3 August 1928, Page 7

Loaded Legislation

LICENSING AMENDMENTS Prime Minister’s Difficulties (THE Suit’S ParXiamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Thursday. WITH Summer Time and the Religious Exercises in Schools " Bill, two of the most contentious measures of the session, out of the way, there remains only one of the highly controversial trinity of party-splitting measures to be faced. This is the Licensing Amendment. Though the Prime Minister has given no hint as to when this Bill will appear, there are several important factors that have a bearing on this phase of the question.

T AST session the Prime Minister did not introduce the Licensing Bill until near the close of an inordinately protracted session, and was roundly scolded for bis tardiness. One of his chief critics, the Leader of the Opposition, expressed during the discussion, which took place in the month of November, the view that the Bill was never intended to become law. If this intention was the fact, then later developments confirmed Mr. Holland’s suspicion, for the Bill was thrown out by the Legislative Council after the Lower House had passed it, in a radically altered form, by a majority of seven votes.

In waiting until toward the end of the session before introducing a measure so contentious, the Prime Minister had good precedent to follow. Astute leaders have in the past made a habit of keeping their party-split-ting measures until the last, thus allowing followers to forget their differences in the healing ease of the recess.

But if he follows the same course this year the Prime Minister will simply be plunging a divided party into the election campaign, a contingency even the most courageous leader would strive by every means to avoid. Accordingly there is room for the suspicion that, in spite of his reticence in the immediate past, the Prime Minister may bring on the Licensing Bill a good deal earlier than many people expect.

HARD FACTS Little has occurred since last session to alter the hard facts left by the welter of confusion surrounding the Prime Minister’s ultimate surrender of his mutilated Bill, Mr. E. P. Lee’s adoption of it for the third reading, and its final rejection by the Upper House. The Prime Minister will doubtless try to embody in his coming Bill some sort of compromises, with the idea of avoiding the acute party schisms of last session. But they will be difficult to avoid. The House is still constituted as it was last session, and will therefore still be predominantly nolicense in its outlook. Any member who changes the vote he cast last session will lay himself open to serious charges of vacillation—charges that would prove embarrassing at the hustings. Hence there is the plain inference that the no-license section in the Lower House will, no matter what form the Prime Minister’s Bill takes when first brought in. be able to swing things its own way. Now for the Prime Minister’s intentions : Some little time ago there was talk of embodiment of a plebiscite proposal in the Bill. This is quite unlikely to appear. Originally suggested as an easy way out of an awkward corner, it does not conform with stated Reform principles, and would in other ways not command the sympathy of party followers. Last session the Prime Minister’s original proposal was for a two-issue ballot paper and a 55-45 per cent, majority. Through successive stages the commanding group hammered this down to a bare majority, at which the Legislative Council baulked. This year it is believed that the Prime Minister will favour a “loaded” majority, loaded not on a percentage basis but on a stated figure, say, 15,000 or 20.000. Either of these figures, “wet” advocates would consider, represents a narrow enough margin, but it may be stated without equivocation that the no-license group, with its command of the House, a full sense of the national importance of its mission, and an unswerving determination to make the most of a golden opportunity, will not consent to any loading exceeding the 5,000 mark. Though it is possible the opinions of the no-license section may diverge slightly on determination of the exact figure, it is nevertheless clear that here will lie one of the first obstacles confronting the next licensing Bill. FIGHT IN THE WIND? Since in the other issues, such as State Control, which the Prime Minister, the Lower House and the Upper House, all agreed last year was a dead Issue, the no-license majority in the Lower House can be relied upon to work its will as it did last session; it will probably remain for the question of bare majority or otherwise to be made a test of strength between Upper and Lower Houses. The coming Licensing Bill may therefore introduce the intriguing prospect of a battle royal fought round the rights of the Upper House; whether for the second time it has the right to challenge the expressed wish of the people’s representatives. This may throw the rights and powers of the Legislative Council into the election field as an active fighting issue next November. Great-hearted Prime Ministers of the past have, of course, converted just such situations to their own glory. But Mr. Coates will hardly feel like leading a crusade against the Upper House simply because it disagrees with the principle of a Bill with which he himself, should the majority be lowered to 5,000, is unlikely to be sympathetic. It is interesting to note that at present four of those who voted for the bare majority last session—Messrs. Tapley, Nos worthy, Rhodes and Jordan —are away, while the other side lacks only Sir Joseph Ward and Mr. T. M. Wilford from its strength. Mr. Wilford, however, is back from the world tour from which he vowed last session to return with fresh evidence for State-control. But these comings and goings are unlikely seriously to affect last session’s comfortable nolicense majority.