OTHER "REFORMS."

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 31, 26 June 1914, Page 4

OTHER "REFORMS."

The Government makes the Governor say very little of the contemplated change in the form of election to the Lower House. The second ballot has been wiped out. The promised substitute is said to be the grouping of the city electorates. This will be a retrogressive move. If the Government were not prepared to carry out its pledge to find a substitute for the second ballot it would have been wiser to leave the laws alone, for with all its imperfections the second ballot is fairer and more satisfactory than the "first past the post" system. Two measures of considerable importance will not ; be taken up by the Government, but left to the House as a whole to deal with. They are amending the licensing laws in the direction chiefly of decreasing the proportion from (00 to 55 per cent, in the voting, and permitting the reading of the Bible in State schools. In regard to the first question, it is so reasonable that the House should have no hesitation in passing it. "The Trade" arc opposing it, I>ut if they could only look far enough ahead they would change their attitude and favor a straight-out bare majority, as rules in other matters. As for the Bible in schools, the Government or the House cannot logically or consistently refuse the reasonable request to have a referendum of the people taken on the question. The Government promises a progressive scheme for road construction in the newer country —"a measure," to use the Governor's words, "which makes provision for the creation of satisfactory means of communication in isolated and badly-roaded districts." In this laudable aim, the Government will have the support of all

sections, and particulars of the scheme will be awaited with interest. Enough has not been done, and is still not being done, in this respect. Settlement has been pushed forward too rapidly, before proper roading facilities "were provided, with the result that settlement, in its true sense, has been retarded. A far wiser policy would have been to make greater use of the accessible land and gradually worked into the bi\ck country. But there the problem is, and it has to be tackled earnestly and determinedly, and if the present Government can find a satisfactory solution, well, then, all power and encouragement to it. Another pressing matter is that of completing the main arterial roads and their maintenance.: It will cost a lot of money, but it would be cheaper and more satisfactory in every respect if the adtice of the member for.Taumarunui were taken and a big loan raised for the purpose, and the work carried through energetically. The Government, according to the Speech from the Throne, is seised with the importance of speedily completing the more important lines of railway now in progress, but it would be more to the point were it to give practical evidence of its solicitude. The greatest railway work in the North Island—in fact, in the Dominion —is th« Stratford-Main Trunk, yet instead of accelerating its progress, the Government is taking off workmen—at any rate at this end. A huge sum of money has already been sunk in this undertaking, and manifestly it is to the interests of the country to complete the work at the earliest possible date, but at the present rate the line will not be finished in a decade. At the same time the Government is commencing other lines, local and otherwise, all over the country. These may be, and no doubt are, urgently required by the particular localities concerned, but the trunk lines should take precedence, and attention be concentrated upon them until finished, and thuß be made revenue-producing at the earliest possible date. The policy adopted by thiß Government —and the last Administration, too—in this matter would in the case of a trading concern spell inefficiency, loss, and early bankruptcy. New Zealand is, after all, but one big trading concern, to which the application of business principles is essential to success and the proper development of the country. But Governments, unlike trading undertakings, seem unable to resist pressure and to do the sound, economical, business-like thing, though full of virtuous professions and high-sounding resolutions. There are other dishes in the menu served up by the Governor, about the conBtituents of which we will no doubt ue informed in due course. Whether, however, they can all be assimilated this session is another matter. Some are sure to cause severe indigestion to a section of the House, and the process of recovery may be accompanied by disagreeable and vehement periods and result in the loss of valuable time and money. A real reform the Government might undertake with advantage to the country would be that of limiting the speech of each member on the Address-in-Reply to Ave minutes. As things are carries on, the public will be inflicted with inconsequential speeches upon every subject under the sun for the next two or three weeks. It takes the ordinary member of Parliament two or three months before he really understands what he is sent to Wellington for and gets down to practical business.