The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1929 THE THIRTEENTH WEEK

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 775, 23 September 1929, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1929 THE THIRTEENTH WEEK

THERE is some indication at last that Parliament has become tired of its own talk and trivialities, and is anxious to get some work done. If the reports and rumours about this change in policy and chatter be true, the taxpayers generally throughout the country will have some pleasure in seeing a curtailment of grotesque expenditure on the worst kind of political trash the Dominion has paid for in a generation. It has not yet been made clear whether the restiveness in Parliament against a waste of time and money is due to Sheer weariness or to a belated sense of shame. Should it be attributable to conscience, and the stirring of virtue, the country- as a whole will be ready to applaud the contrite politicians, though it may not forget for a long time the manner in which the machinery of legislation has been kept idle at an enormous expense. Parliament has been in session for twelve weeks, and the record of its measurable service is today microscopic. In order to make it perceptible to the ordinary apathetic observer, the sum of legislative or any other kind of achievement would have to be magnified twelve times, and even then shortsighted people could not see it. Those who closely have studied New Zealand politics and Parliamentary work for the past thirty years cannot recall a worse session than the-one which has fallen this winter to the lowest, level of political ineptitude. If the men who have been responsible for this lamentable record were to attempt anything like the same tactics in business they would be dismissed incontinently within a week and without a reference.

It is not necessary to explore deeply in order to find the reasons for a deplorable period of Parliamentary loquacity and party humbug. To begin with the Government is a minority administration, containing no more than two or three Ministers whose claims to sound knowledge of their tasks and responsibilities cannot be challenged. All the others are crude apprentices and are learning their administrative jobs at the expense of the taxpayer. The Opposition is like a forked radish with two heads instead of one. Each part of the whole hates the other part, and the only bond that holds them together is a common desire to keep the Government in power, not because of any admiration for the Ministry, hut merely because none of the three rival parties wants to face the ordeal of an emergency election. These contrarities and party compromises have provided the main reason for Parliament having wasted three months on recriminatory talk. It is probably true that the immature Government has been grateful for the party distractions. It has been provided with a plausible excuse for its failure to do any of the great deeds it vowed to do from scores of public platforms before the General Election last year. When the summer recess comes the people will be told glibly that, if the Opposition had not devoted most of its energy to hampering the Government, a great programme of wonderful legislation would have been completed so efficiently that. New- Zealand again would have led the world in legislative enterprise and humanitarian laws and regulations.

As things actually are today. Parliament enters its thirteenth week of sessional activity with a debating record that would he despised by a Band of Hope team of childish debaters. It may he proved soon that there is no had luck at all about the superstitious number. There -is a rumour, for example, that the Prime Minister is determined to break the expensive habits of contending parties and drive them into the performance of useful work. It has taken a long time to convince the veteran statesman that the result of his return to the highest political post in the Dominion has, so far, yielded the most meagre record of achievement in the whole course of his notable career as an administrator.

The public will not be particularly interested as to whether the promise of work in Parliament is due to a slow awakening from political somnolence or is attributable to a belated stab of conscience. People are now anxious for political deeds, and no more political drivel at all. The Government and the divided Opposition as well still have time to smother the blemishes on the present session under new Statutes demonstrating legislative wisdom. It is long past time for professional politicians to justify their acceptance of honoraria.

THE ENGLISH CRICKETERS

IN a springtime atmosphere, tinctured with the glowing warmth of summer, there is ample reminder that the garb of winter recreations must very soon be laid away, and as if to emphasise the intimation there is the published announcement that within a little more than two months an English cricket team will be landing in New Zealand to renew the pleasant associations begun in earlier visits. This will he the eighth English team to have visited New Zealand, and in some respects it-promises to he the most interesting of all. Its personnel includes men whose vigorous and enterprising cricket should appeal to all lovers of the game. There are distinguished figures such as Woolley, perhaps the greatest left-handed batsman of all time, and K. S. Duleepsinhji, an Indian prince whose flashing blade seems touched at times with magic. The team follows in the footsteps of a great company. It is 66 years since the first of its seven predecessors was brought to New Zealand through- the enterprise of the cricket-lovers of Dunedin. The summer of 1863 was one in which Auckland had little time for cricket. Her able-bodied men were campaigning in the Waikato war. Yet, after Rangiriri, when the army moved south toward Te Awamutu, the volunteers and regulars played cricket beside the banks of the Waipa. If Auckland-could not join Canterbury and Otago in paying tribute to the first British team, it was not for lack of enthusiasm. Accordingly the province gladly shared in welcoming Lillywhite’s team of 1876-77. But the Auckland twenty-two, like the Otago twenty-two. the Wellington twenty-two, and the Canterbury eighteen, could not stein the triumphant progress of that powerful side. Great names shine in the gallery of English cricketers who have visited us. P. F. Warner, A. C. McLaren, J. W. H. T. Douglas—these and many more were giants of the game. They came and went, and steadily the prestige of New Zealand cricket climbed, until at length it reached a standard which allowed no question of eighteens and twenty-twos. Today the major provinces meet any visiting side on level terms. The New Zealand team to visit England in 1931 will, in all probability, have the honour of meeting the Motherland in Test matches. For this improvement Dominion cricket owed much to the men from overseas. If at one time they came to teach, perhaps it will not he long now before they even come to learn. However they come, it is a privilege to greet them, and a privilege, too, to surrender to the charm of good, keen cricket played in the best of spirit on a fine summer day.