The Daily News. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1911. CARELESS CASHIERS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 105, 24 October 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1911. CARELESS CASHIERS.

When the Parliamentary session opened, it was carefully mentioned that it would be a short one because the elections were pending. Parliament, however, stuck to its traditional and absurd method of wasting several weeks in the dreary business of re-hash, the Parliamentary columns of the New Zealand papers and the sacred pages of Hansard containing masses of painful verbal futilities. The most eager searcher could find no single grain among the rusty chaff for which the people were paying. It was the sort of work Parliamentarians could use as an excuse for the reiteration of the complaint that they must wear their minds and bodies out in the service of the nation when the nation is fast asleep in bed. The development of New Zealand is the chief concern of its people, and necessarily the first concern of the people's representatives. The allocation of money for public works is one of the most important works the New Zealand Parliament every performs. When the Estimates are considered it happens that Parliament is least fitted to deal with them. Parliament as a body would, it is suggested, not be chosen by a great business concern as a financial advisory corporation, but in the infinitely more important business of passing votes for national publie works this body, which has no special knowledge or training, sleepily continues to chorus aye' throughout an evening or two—and the people find the cash. It is not necessary to prove lliat in passing the hundreds of votes the members whose ''ayes'' help kii"w little or nothing about the projected works for which the money is intended. Only a small proportion of members of Parliament attend to Ibis business at all. The rest regard the expenditure of millions of pounds as of no interest alter they have carefully thrown in their "aye" for a vote to their oAvn constituencies. This small proportion is not composed ol experts. Jf consists of any members who happen to show a greater interest in the House than in bed. Mr. Jlerdman recently made the suggestion 1 hat allocations for public works should be made not by the few tired members who consent to do the work, but by a board of experts. It is a suggestion that deserves consideration. The defects of the pre-

sent system are patent. Votes are \ simply rushed through in order to J get an unpleasant task over. The I system is haphazard and not at all houest. It is almost incredible I that votes totalling three millions ] of pounds should be passed at a short sitting without practically any consideration. Public works votes are matters for the most careful and expert, attention. As trustees of the people's cash members of Parliament might be expected to treat the matter with the deep seriousness it merits, if members of Parliament were trustees of private funds their methods would surely be more careful than those they employ as trustees of public money.