The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 1918. UPPER HOUSE REFORM.

Taranaki Daily News, 1 May 1918, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 1918. UPPER HOUSE REFORM.

The question of reconstituting the Upper House ( or Revising Chamber, of Parliament is just as urgent in New Zealand as in the United Kingdom. The House of Lords and the Legislative Council both consist of nominees, though the hereditary principle in the Motherland intensifies the evil and is antagonistic to the democratic spirit of the age. It is, however, not with the creation of peers, whether for limited or unlimited periods, that we need be concerned. The point that matters is the constitution of an Upper Chamber for legislative purposes, and the time lias arrived when merit and fitness for the task must replace the pernicious system of appointment by favor. The very interesting report made by Lord Bryce on the conference for the reform of the House of Lords deals with this subjoct fairly and judicially, and it should attract attention throughout the Empire. It is evident that the democratic principle is the main force which has guided the conference to its conclusions. The hereditary principle is doomed, the wonder being that it has so long survived. The House of Lords has been regarded as an almost sacred institution in Britain, but the waves of popular opinion have, year by year, been undermining the fabric, while the House of Commons dealt it a severe

blow by passing the Parliament Act, which put an end to the obstructive tactics of the Upper House in connection with important measures passed by the people's representatives in the Commons. Hereditary peers may be all very well as titular personages, but as legislators they are, on the whole, intolerable. It was absuril to suppose that such mi assembly could be reformed; the only remedy was to sweep the House of Lords out of existence and create a revising chamber 011 sane democratic lilies, in touch with, but not subject to the will of, the people. The pulling down process is easy; not so the constructive. New Zealand recognises this fact as much as Britain, and" it is the means utilised for constructing a substitute for the existing Upper House in each case that will need extreme care in arriving at a satisfactory decision. The pivot on which the whole subject turns is party Government, and we must assume that system will continue. At once the reformers are faced with the problem of how to constitute the Upper Chamber 'without making it a mere reflection of the I.ower. -Party supremacy fluctuates, but if the Revising Chamber is to be of real service there must be continuity of policy on progressive lines, otherwise the value of the Upper House as a' Revising Chamber is nullified. Lord Bryce's' report indicates that the whole subject has been given close and careful study, with the result that the nominative system stands condemned — and rightly so —and election by popular franchise has shared the same fate. Two important drawbacks have to be avoided, the first being antagonism between the two Houses, while the second is the moulding of both branches of the Legislature 011 the same lines, the one being a re-echo of the other. The solution which has commended itself to the conference is the adoption of the principle of election of the Upper House by the Lower, but grouping the voters in territorial areas and applying the system of proportional representation to the election so as to avoid the lines of party cleavage. The dominant idea governing these proposals is certainly worthy of serious consideration, both in Britain and in the Dominions. We do not say that its adoption will remove all the evils that beset parliamentary government, but the destruction of the nominative system is urgently required. Above all is needed a Revising Chamber that is not a mere political makeshift, but a legislative reality. As matters are at present in New Zealand the larger number of our most brainy men with administrative ability refuse to submit themselves to the vote of the people, but would, doubtless, be quite willing to be elected by the people's representatives on the understanding that they were not bound by any party pledges, but were to devote their best energies to ensure the welfare of all classes of the community, and to have an equal jurisdiction over financial as well as other measures. Such a Chamber should certainly prevent a large number of the evils perpetrated under the present system. At all events it is undoubtedly agreed that a reform is needed generally in Upper House constitution, and the recommendations in Lord Bryce's report may well bo taken as a foundation for those changes which are admitted to be necessary. We venture to say, that if the reform were to be voted on by the people of the Dominion it would be carried by an overwhelming majority, and there is no reason why, even during war time, the subject should not be treated as one of importance, so that when the after-war struggle is taking place, New Zealand's Parliament will be fitted to tackle the problems that must inevitably demand most careful settlement.