Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1943. INDEPENDENCE AND PARTY.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 September 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1943. INDEPENDENCE AND PARTY.

A QUESTION which deserves much more serious and widespread attention Ilian il has received in the course of the present election campaign is (hat of the degree ol independence which should be exercised by members of Parliament in the discharge of their representative duties. A clause in the policy manifesto issued by the National Parly reads: Every National Party member of . Parliament shall be free to vote on every question according to his conscience. It lias since been explained by the Leader of the National Party, Mr Holland, that its members would be regarded as under an obligation to vote with their party only on a no-confidence motion. . . , ~ This proposal has been attacked, not only by leading members and supporters of the present Labour Government, but, oddly enough, by candidates of the Independent Group, these last presumably are committed to.a plan more or less analagous to that put forward by the National Party, though in what manner they would proceed to carry it into effect il they had the opportunity of doing so has yet to be made clear. Their criticism of the National Parly proposal apparently relates chiefly to questions of honesty of purpose and credibility on which it must be left to the electors to pronounce their verdict. The issues of principle involved were dealt with by the Prime Minister (Mr Fraser) in a. somewhat summary fashion at one of his recent election meetings. Observing that the National Party leader, Mr Holland, had declared that all elected members of his party would be free to vote as they liked on any questions except' a motion of no-confidence, Mr Fraser, as he was reported, added: — Such a proposal would reduce Parliament to an absurdity, because if free members refused to support a Bill the Government would be defeated. The National Party leader’s proposal is all humbug. As to the only specific point here made by the Prime Minister it perhaps may be sufficient to say that if the exercise 01. honest independence by members of Parliament entails the death of a government, the sooner that government is dead the better. At present we have in this country, under a system that admittedly has become established and customary also in other Empire countries, including Britain, Cabinet dictation where legislation is concerned. In some instances Bills, prior to their introduction, may be submitted to meetings of the rank and file supporters of the Government of the day, but the influence exercised by most, of these members upon the character and effect of legislation probably has been and is very limited indeed. The outcome, in any event, is the presentation to Parliament of Bills which members of the party in power are expected to support, irrespective of their individual opinions and convictions. Accepting the need for a measure of party organisation in Parliament, and certainly without going to the extreme of demanding that all members should be returned as unpledged independents, it is possible to believe that an honest and responsible exercise of individual judgment by members of all parties would invigorate the working life of Parliament and elevate its standards. Where a definite mandate has been obtained from the country on a specific proposal or set of proposals, a majority of members of Parliament as a rule will be pledged one way or another on the legislation involved. Even here, however, there is, or should be, room for the exercise of individual judgment where methods and details are concerned. Members who vote with their party as a matter of course, and without any exercise of individual judgment, on any and every division on a Bill in Committee reduce themselves thereby to the status of political serfs. That apart, many items of legislation become policy measures only by the dictum of Cabinet and in a dull continuation of a thoroughly bad custom. There is a point at which loyalty to party becomes a betrayal of the country. One very important consideration is that if rank and file members of Parliament exercised an unhampered judgment in dealing with measures on their merits, valuable safeguards would be established against Cabinet being dominated or dictated to by outside organisations and interests. Why it should be considered by the present Prime Minister or anyone else that Parliament in the circumstances suggested would be reduced to an absurdity is not apparent. It appears rather to be true that only by the exercise of independent judgment by members of all parties, irrespective of whether their particular party is or is not in power for the time being, can Parliament attain its true status and become in fact as well as in name the legislative authority of the Dominion.