The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 1930 THE DUTY OF PARLIAMENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1008, 26 June 1930, Page 10

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 1930 THE DUTY OF PARLIAMENT

AFTER a generous recess of rather more than six months, members of Parliament reassemble at Wellington today vritli the best intention to do good work and earn their salaries. It is possible that they even hope to secure again, a special bonus of £IOO each, excepting Ministers-and those few legislators who did not think it was right last year to help themselves from a lean public purse. There is ample scope for the performance of good work. And there also is need of much better work than has been done in Parliament for far too many sessions. The Dominion requires and demands first an outstanding example in the practice of political economy. It cannot afford to have money wasted on a dozen Ministers and over six-score of legislators wrangling like fishwives or raving like fortune-tellers and conjurers with poor tricks for weeks at a time on the exhausted plea that party debates are essential to good government and national progress. If it were the prerogative of the people to command representative politicians (the right exists in theory, but is ignored in practice) the order of the day for Parliament would be simply this: “Cut out the cackle” and work honestly and hard every day! In the special and serious circumstances of the period an end should be made quickly to any form of political hypocrisy and party humbug. The Government is in a hopeless minority, and also is handicapped severely by the regrettable absence of its former inspiring leader, Sir Joseph Ward, who valiantly is fighting severe indisposition, but weakening in a splendid fight. The reconstituted Ministry still lias to overcome the weaknesses of administrative immaturity within itself. New administrators have yet to learn a lot about their tasks and responsibilities, while several of the more experienced Ministers obviously have not been first-class learners. It would be easy for the numerically strong Opposition, if its two rival parties were to combine in assault upon the Forbes Administration, to throw the Government incontinently out of office. Has the Reform Party, has the Labour Party, or have both together any real intention of dismissing the Government? This question should be answered without an extravagant waste of time and public money on threats and sporadic tests. If it be considered necessary to exercise the usual sessional formality of separating the sheep from the goats, let the division on a no-confidence motion be taken briskly and in open purpose. Everybody knows that the Government is exceptionally weak in every way, but is there anything better in sight within the House ? The new Prime Minister has been candid over his extraordinary difficulties and had legacies. He is determined to grapple, firmly with them and do his best. For these reasons Mr. Forbes is entitled not only to sympathy, but also to a reasonable, even a generous, measure of support. Those who may be disposed to challenge that will agree at least that the Leader of tlie Government should not be harassed or haunted by the shadow of the sword of defeat over his head. If time proves that the Prime Minister is unequal to a hard task, then the Opposition should not hesitate to drive him and bis emaciated band into the wilderness. So far, at the time of writing, the Government has not disclosed in detail its legislative policy for a crucial session. It lias expressed with valour its determination to face facts, to take the people into the Prime Minister’s confidence (perhaps as a flattering preparation for taking more money out of their pockets) and to economise throughout the grotesque range of State services. An estimated deficit of £3,000,000 has to be counterbalanced, and the Minister of Finance cannot hope to square his accounts this financial year without giving another turn to the rack of taxation. The State is so impecunious that even the fair recommendations of the Soldiers’ Rehabilitation Commission cannot be carried out anything like to the full scope of reasonableness. The men who did not economise either in war service or sacrifice now must suffer the rigours of natioual economy. That Ministerial confession is sufficient to show clearly how desperate is the Government’s financial plight. It is the duty of Parliament to secure economy in other directions and substitute good work for had garrulity. A GREAT AUSTRALIAN AIRMAN BY accomplishing successfully the hazardous crossing of the Atlantic from east to west, Squadron-Leader Kingsford Smith has added substantially to his magnificent record in longdistance aviation. Further he has completed the most difficult and dangerous part of his self-appointed task—that of putting “a girdle round about the earth” in his sturdy, though veteran airplane. the Southern Cross. When he carries out his expressed intention of flying- across the United States from New York to San Francisco —a trip that should prove comparatively safe and easy —lie will have returned to the starting point of a courageous and daring emprise. It is true that Kingsford Smith failed to reach his objective in his latest “hop” from Portmarnock, Ireland, to New York, hut this does not detract from an achievement that well deserves the unstinted plaudits of the world. Tragedies and failures and hard-won successes have proved in recent years that the east-to-west crossing is dangerous to a degree, partly because of the set of the air currents, and partly because of the exceedingly unfavourable flying conditions which prevail off the coast of Labrador and Newfoundland —in fact, off practically the whole of the eastern coast of the American Continent above New ork. In distance traversed tlie gallant Australian’s flight has been similar to that of Baron von Huelmefeld and Major Fitzmaurice in 1928, although yesterday’s crossing must be counted much more successful in that the Southern Cross was landed under conditions that permit of an early take-off for New York when fresh supplies of petrol are secured. Probably the outstanding - feature of the Atlantic flight of the Southern Cross, apart from its technical aspects, lias been the cheerful confidence of the leader and his colleagues, whose messages to a listening world recall vividly the spirit in which Kingsford Smith undertook his former exploits. In a manner unmistakably British and typically Australian, this born aviator has prepared wholeheartedly for his flights, then embarked upon them with a boyish enthusiasm in which there has been no display of pardonable anxiety or even conventional solemnity. But the record of Kingsford Smith proves that he is nothing if not thorough. Today New York is waiting to honour a man who crossed the Pacific for the first time, made pioneer flights to and from New Zealand, flew from Australia to England after one unfortunate breakdown, and now has braved Atlantic murk and head winds. Clearly Kingsford Smith has shown that he has no peers in his profession, for his exploits are unparalleled in the history of aviation. The time has come for tlie Empire to acknowledge and reward a man who has earned great distinction.