The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1929 THE LEADING DEBATING SOCIETY

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 757, 2 September 1929, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1929 THE LEADING DEBATING SOCIETY

IS the United Government doomed to early extinction? This question is close up in the background of the gloomy picture of Parliamentary sluggishness and recriminatory party tactics in the Dominion’s worst debating society. The same question also is the source of reports and rumours about political restiveness, the lack of harmony within the Ministry, and the possibility of a quick defeat of the weak Administration. It is not an easy question to answer with anything like conclusive accuracy. Politicians, who are fairly true to type all the world over, are “a peculiar people.” They are masters of simulated indignation. Many of them can froth at the mouth in apparent rage, and yet remain normal at heart and placid in intention.

Then there is the great difference between the questions—quite pertinent at the moment in New Zealand—whether any Government deserves to be thrown out of power or whether it would he an advantage to the country to supplant a poor Administration with another not likely in abnormal party circumstances to be much, if anything, better. It is true and scrupulously fair to say that few prospective Governments could be any worse than the United Government. Irrefutable proof of that assertion has been supplied by the Government’s own record of foolish promise and feeble performance. It has acquired several estates for the purpose of closer settlement, hut no one may applaud, with valid reason, the achievement until the cost of the enterprise has been disclosed. In all probability this obviously expensive method of placing a score of agriculturists where there was only one before will prove to be another demonstration of the optimistic manner in which politicians make financial yokes for the necks of small farmers. And a great deal of borrowed money has been spent on employing a large proportion of the unemployed without solving the problem of unemployment. Finally, the Government has been eminently successful during the past nine months in filling the minds of many people with high hopes and anticipation of prosperity and wonder-working legislation. So much can be said without qualification about the administrative work of the Government. But not even its best friends could or dare say anything more than that for the inexperienced Administration. Against the most glowing record that admiring partisans might make out for the Government there must be placed in clear light, however, the Government’s failure and the depressing influence it has wrought on New Zealand’s credit in the London money market. All the perfervid talk about borrowing £.70,000,000, together with intention to spend huge sums on railway construction without a single expert guarantee that such work as has been authorised will ever he able to pay interest on borrowed capital, has compelled British investors to exercise prudence and speak about the possibility of hardening the rate of interest.

Still, if all these weaknesses and rash promises be conceded and every allowance made for them, to say nothing about the inevitable difficulties that shackle all minority Governments, it does not necessarily follow that a strong Opposition will precipitate an emergency election with much risk of disconcerting results for aggressive parties. There has been valiant talk in the House of Representatives about the readiness of the principal rivals to meet a crucial test, hut that sort of political valour can he discounted by more than the customary 33 1-3 per cent. None of the parties wants another fight for place and power. While the Government is less than mediocre, the House of Representatives, as a whole, has been a great deal worse. It has been in session for nine weeks, and as a result of a typhoon of talk, only two or three formal Bills have been finalised. More recently, the debates in the House have been unpardonably extravagant at their best, and grotesque nonsense at their worst. If any other business were to be managed on the same lines it would become either insolvent in a week or raised to safety by the old-fashioned process of ruthless dismissal of incompetent managers. By far the worst feature of a sorry display of useless politics, however, has been the manner in which several Ministers have been censured and humiliated in public by their chief. There was a time when Ministers, in the same predicament, would have resigned on the instant. Apparently, a new type of administrator has arrived to hasten the deterioration of Governments and Parliaments. THE DEPENDENT INDEPENDENTS FE difficulties of Independents in a delicately balanced Parliament are illustrated by the case of Mr. W. J. Poison, M.P. for Stratford, whose support of the Government on the super-tax issue appears to have estranged much of the support hitherto accorded him as president of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union. Even if the number of farmers to be affected by the increased taxation is as limited as the Prime Minister asserts, the resentment in the farming community is not limited to those directly concerned. Rather there appears to be a feeling that a dangerous principle has been admitted, and that an extension of the principle is the next thing to he feared. There will be some plain speaking when Mr. Poison next faces a mass meeting of the Farmers’ Union. Of course, Mr. Poison is no friend of Mr. Coates. He was elected to Stratford on one pledge, to eject the Reform Party; and to join Reform in any subsequent issue would no doubt he personally repugnant to him. But there is the complicating factor that he was elected against a farmer, by farmers, to watch farming interests. If he is doing this at the present time, he has failed to impress the fact on his friends of the Farmers’ Union. Far from being a robust Independent, he appears to have become a Government camp follower. Had he been given some Cabinet office when portfolios were being allotted, this attitude would not have been surprising. It would, indeed, have been inevitable. But in spite of his unquestionable ability, and grasp of rural problems, he was given no portfolio. Unless he still has hopes, he would be well advised to define his position more clearly. In contrast with Mr. Poison is Mr. C. A. Wilkinson, his neighbour in the next-door electorate. Although so far associated with the Government that he has become the chairman of a committee, Mr. Wilkinson has maintained his independence on the floor of the House, and his criticism has, on the whole, been very sound, and unprejudiced. He opposed the primage increase, and speaking with the authority of a business man-—he controls an important Taranaki firm—he assured the House that the levy would be passed on. Even so. he voted with the Government on last week s division, so perhaps the party will yet manage to silence his effective criticism by gathering him into its midst. Mr. J. T. Hogan’s attitude to the Government is that of a loyal party man —not a surprising development in view of his past affiliations. More remarkable, perhaps, is the inconspicuous position so far taken by Mr. H. M. Rushworth. The lone Country Party representative has to date been little more than a Government cypher whose vote on the primage and land-tax division must have outraged the feelings of his friends.