The Daily News. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1912. THE SESSION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 120, 8 October 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1912. THE SESSION.

Mr. Massey and his colleagues do not appear to be having a much happier time than their predecessors with their first session, for although the House has now been sitting practically for the customary period associated with its annual deliberations, very little work of importance has been done, with the exception of making plenty of promises of the wonderful legislation that is to be enacted next year. The Government has really some excuse for making haste slowly at the present juncture, for it camo into office under such parlous conditions and with such a prolonged inexperience of the worries of administration that it is only reasonable to allow Ministers some time to get. into harness. Still, Mr. Massey might have realised this fact a little earlier, and contented kimself with, a less ambitious legislative programme for his initial session. As it is, we have now reached the inevitable political stage when Parliament is getting restive and is wanting to "go homo to ma." The Government contemplates bringing the session to a close about October 20 or 27. Hut we all know what particular road is paved with good intentions, and if this object is to be accomplished it will mean a wholesale slaughter of the innocents, and even then Mr. Massey will be faced by the almost inevitable certainty of having to drive the House by that objectionable process which is known as "legislation liy exhaustion." a practice which has earned the supremest contumely at the kaids of himself and his party in the past, when they were in the happy position of having nothing to do but sit comfortably in the cool shades of opposition and dictate complacently how things really ought to be done. The Prime Minister is in a very different position now, and he has probably long since realised that the difficulties of compre-

hensive administration are. much more formidable than those of casual criticism, and both he and his colleagues will, not unnaturally, be regretting some of the commentaries of their "dreadful past," which' are threatening to come home to roost. Even the excuse for an early adjournment is the well-worn and threadbare one that it is necessary for members to get away to their homes in time for the harvesting season and the New Zealand Cup. The ordinary person is apt to run away with the conclusion that in paying members of Parliament for a year?s service the country should, if necessary, get that year's service so long as the business of the country is not completed, but the long arm of precedent has established the' length of a session at a rough average of four months, and if it is extended over that period members regard the matter as something in the nature of>a personal grievance. We have often had threats of "sitting until Christmas if necessary," but these have generally vanished into thin air when the first week in November has arrived. Apparently the new administration 1 is not disposed to improve upon the methods of its predecessors, and we are to be treated to the customary spectacle ;of policy measures being , thrown overboard, important legislation being,pushed through in the early hours of the morning by a jaded Souse, and onky the business which is absolutely necessary in tlie immediate interests of the country being pLced "upon the Statute Book. The long political day, in fact, appeajs to bid fair to wear to its close upon singularly familiar lines so far as the mueh-vaunted Reform Party is concerted'. ' ,