THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY. DECEMBER 10, 1909. THE POLITICAL SITUATION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9672, 10 December 1909, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY. DECEMBER 10, 1909. THE POLITICAL SITUATION.

The dawn of a new political day is clearly breaking upon the Parliamentary horizon of New Zealand, after a long night in which neither administrative energy nor personal independence were visible to the most careful observer. To many other British communities it may seem a little thing that a Government should at last begin to study the necessities and requirements of industrial development, and that members of Parliament should at last begin to assert Parliamentary rights in affairs of state. But in New Zealand wr have lonn had a Government stupefied by the control of an irresistible majority, and a Parliament similarly paralysed by the conviction that any exhibition of individual independence in the ranks of the majority could only result in public works penalties and in ultimate expulsion. recent stern reminder that prosperity cannot be insured by a "taihoa" policy has, however, disturbed the equanimity of Ministers and the humility of mem • bers The result is that we have Sir Joseph Ward and his colleagues more or less energetically engaged ' in adopting as their own the main features of a progressive policy which independent critics have for years been advocating, and an increasing number of members refusing to obey the party whip when it is cracked without good cause in the traditional fashion. From this revival of Parliamentary independence even more permanent good may be expected than from the display of greater administrative energy, for nothing can be worse for a country than to have a Government which feels th3t it ca-i do exactly as it chooses to do without any regard whatever for the public opinion which is theoretically reflected and made effective by the j criticisms and actions of members ot Parliament. That this Parliamentary criticism has been practically comatose, and that the Government has been consequently extravagant and wasteful to an extraordinary degree, is shown bv the extent of (he re- ! tr nehircn's forced upon th: G verri-

merit by the recent financial strin- £ geney. The charge of extravagance t in administration has been brought I against the Government a hundred t times by Opposition and independent 1 critics, and the Government has a i hundred times retorted that such ( charges were malicious, and that \ those who clamoured for reads anrl 1 railways should be the last to make i them Yet by its own act of retrench- : ment the government stands selfconfessed of gross extravagance in the past Until recently, when Parliament was 111 session, remarks the "New Zealand Herald," members knew nothing of what might harp n until the Cabinet disclosed its determinations and demanrie endorsement. It 13 the Cabinet its If which now knows nothing of what may happen, and we can quite understand that the unexpected discovery that the House is, after all, a potential tribunal, is not grateful to Ministers, conscious of being more deserving of support than they have been for many a long year. The fatted calf is not being killed for thi<3 repentant prodigal son. Instead, we have the House bluntly and decisively objecting to the employment of Mr Reeves as financial adviser to a costly an d well-staffed High Commissioner's Office, an objection which the country must approve though without any depreciation of that gentleman's notable literary qualifications. Again, we have the Minister for Education talking his own Bill to a standstill in order to prevent the House defying the Council, against j his advice, on behalf of the Friendly Societies. Again, we have the House refusing to penalise non-guaranteed city loans by placing, all sinking funds at low inter; st in the hands of the Public Trustee, as provided in the so-called State Guaranteed Loans Bill. It is not necessary to agree with the incidence of every specified 1 case of Parliamentary revolt against administrative dictation to recognise that the snli tnpe for sound Government lies in fearless Parliamentary • criticism, and that unless members set duty to country above duty to • party, every democratic principle 1 must be ultimately sacrificed and - democratic government made a delusion and a snare.