Paramount Issue

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 461, 17 September 1928, Page 16

Paramount Issue

LICENSING FILLS HORIZON End of Session in Sight (THE SUN’S Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, Saturday. LICENSING fills the Parliamentary horizon as the paramount issue of the moment, but it does not conceal the fact that the session cannot now last more than three or four weeks longer. There are other important measures beside the Licensing Bill not yet disposed of, but once this contentious measure is out of the way the House will have a clear run at the remainder of its programme.

TtrANY legislative efforts that started off earlier in the session in a blaze of high hope have fallen by the wayside. Away down in the depths at the bottom of the order-paper they are now entombed and the prospects of their resurrection are small. Even the most optimistic champions of Daylight Saving have renounced hope for the half-hour summer-time compromise propounded by the select committee, and this represents but one of the directions in which the fond hopes of legislative promoters have gone astray, as they must inevitably go astray when they are not backed by the Government, with its supreme authority over the order paper. Of the general impotence of politicians and parties there could be no more vivid reflex than the Licensing Bill and the agitation it invariably arouses. On Tuesday and again on Thursday the feelings of party loyalists were butchered to make a holiday for the galleries. The harrowed soul of Mr. W. E. Parry was impelled to cry out against the usually faultless logic of Mr. J. McCombs, and Cabinet Ministers sat submerged in gloom with the knowledge that they must shortly go forth to vote against their leader. THREE-BOTTLE MEN

The time-worn arguments advanced in the licensing discussion, which even yet has not gone further than its bare preliminaries, warrant only scant attention. It is curious that, though members of Parliament acknowledge that licensing is the greatest ordeal they must face, they are never able to compose their differences in the shadows, nor even to arrange that they shall be treated with reticence. The six hours consecrated to the verbal ebb and flow on Thursday is testimony to the unvarying volume of this discussion. But perhaps the fact that there are still some who, with their minds already made up, do not intend to speak unless they are goaded into it, is the sign of a dawning wisdom. Among the more striking utterances produced by the debate to date were the concluding remarks of Mr. T. M. Wilford who, in one of the finest

speeches of the session, pointed out that in these days drunkenness was out of fashion, and that the threebottle men of our forefathers’ day would not be tolerated in twentieth century society. When it was not engaged with the Licensing issue the House was singularly somnolent. Sir Joseph Ward reappeared on Tuesday, spruce, polished and seemingly full of his old-time vigour. He was “rung down” twice in a committee discussion on Tuesday, and on Wednesday contrived to horrify his admirers by giving the impression that he had forgotten elementary forms of the House. But he rehabilitated himself with a grand speech to the Licensing debate, and for once interjectors found a victim from whom they got no quarter, whose return thrusts were delivered in a kindly, courteous, but none the less effective way. A NEW ARRIVAL

The Stork, which in Parliament usually takes the form of Governor’s message, and is ushered in with the Speaker’s chant: “I have a message from his Excellency the GovernorGeneral, Charles Fergusson, GovernorGeneral,” brought along an interesting newcomer, the Motorists Third Party Risk Bill, on Tuesday evening. This infant, though overshadowed on the night of its arrival by the Licensing Bill, will arouse considerable discussion when it reappears later on, but its provisions are such that, should opposition threaten serious delay, the Government may decide to shelve it until next year. A committee, headed by Mr. A. Harris (Waitemata), which investigated its subject with commendable thoroughness, and gave picture-ex-hibitors the credit for being decent, patriotic fellows instead of ogres endeavouring to foist nothing but foreigD films on the New Zealand public, appears to have satisfactorily overcome the difficulties which surrounded the Cinematograph Films Bill. In any case the subject was perhaps too complicated to evoke long discussion in the House; but any favours thus conveyed will be offset by the debate sure to rise round the Bill validating Mr.

H. H. Sterling’s appointment as general manager of railways. On Wednesday the House trifled without enthusiasm with some Government Bills and reports, and on Friday the members, apparently exhausted by their efforts the previous evening, offered no serious objection to the passage of fourteen classes of estimates. A party whip anxious to avoid any protracted argument* probably had Mr. J. A. Lee well in hand, otherwise it is difficult to explain Mr. Lee’s silence under the solemn taunts of the Minister of Education. But Mr. Lee possibly decided that the Ministerial “chick, chick, chick, chicken” had already been plucked enough.