PARLIAMENTARIANS AND COMMISSIONS.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 October 1921, Page 2

PARLIAMENTARIANS AND COMMISSIONS.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —I take it, and I am sure that a large number of your readers will agree with me, that the Government of New Zealand has automatically resolved itself into Government by Commission, or perhaps I should say. Government by Royal Commission. When any important matter affecting the pople, or a portion of the people, is brought forward in the House of Parliament, in eight cases out of ten our legislators shelve their responsibility on to commissions. I refer here briefly to the Racing Commission, commissions to decide new railway routes, hospital commissions, and now a commission to inquire into Mr. Master’s charges about cement and so on. In regard to the last, I for one, will admit that a commission of inquiry is necessary, serious changes having been made against the Government. As for the majority of these commissions I ask, What do the people send representatives to Wellington for? They draw a salary of £5OO a year, and shelve their reEpcnsibilities on to commissions. What are the Government officials in the different departments paid for if they cannot supply the necessary information. To any mind, the trouble is, our representatives have not the courage, grit, and integrity necessary to qualify for their positions,- at least I refer to a large number of them. Men with backbone are required to be sent to Wellington. Take the Racing Commission. Who will say that it has not cost this little country well over £10,000? And the Government talks about, economy I According to Press reports a day or two ago, Mr. Massey says the commission’s finding is verv complicated, and will have to bo handled carefully. Th fact. it. is possible, he says, that the whole report may be relegated to the waste paper box. What a state of efficiency! I maintain, sir, that a committee of members of the House, along with Government departmental officers, ought to have been able to supply this very necessary information. Mind, I nm not finding fault with the commission’s recommendations. I hold that the members of that commission have gone very ‘thoroughly through their work. The point I wish to stress is this. When next election comes round, whether the candidates 1 he Reform, Liberal, or Labor, I say to my fellow citizens, in Taranaki and throughout New Zealand, give your support to the man who is not afraid to speak his mind, who ‘ will stand or fall by hta conviction*, and

thereby rid New Zealand of the political wabbler and rail sitter, of whom there are far too many at the present day.—l am, etc., J.K. New Plymouth, October 20.