THE WEEK IN THE HOUSE

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25550, 19 July 1948, Page 6

THE WEEK IN THE HOUSE

CLASHES ON POINTS OF ORDER FURTHER STATEMENT ON DEFENCE EXPECTED (From Our Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, July 18. In the sheer numbers of words spoken, the Address-in-Reply debate, which has now closed, was notable. Every member of the House except seven spoke, most of them for their full 30 minutes, and the wide variety of subjects ranged from some petty parish pump priming of greatly restricted interest to a Ministerial survey of the country’s defence problems and some highly controversial opinions on foreign affairs. Great interest was taken in the address by Mr G. H. O. Wilson (Government, Palmerston North) on world affairs. Some Government members described it as a “rocking the boat” speech, for it was far from an echo of the party’s line on foreign affairs. It was noticeable that when Mr T. C. Webb (Opposition, Rodney), who followed Mr Wilson and attacked the picture he had painted of America’s part in world affairs, was speaking, the Prime Minister (Mr P. Fraser) was quick with several “hear, hears.” It does not often happen that Mr Fraser openly shows his opinion of a Labour member’s speech which he has not liked, and some National Party observers believe that Mr Wilson’s speech marks the open emergence of a young, left-wing—as if the Government was not sufficiently embarrassed by the industrial group for which Messrs Barnes and Hill are spokesmen. The Minister of Labour (Mr A. McLagan) did not speak in the Address-in-Reply debate. He has had a sufficiently busy time since Parliament opened without making unessential speeches. Most of the time, he had the Mountpark dispute on his hands.

Points of Order A feature of the week, has been the number of clashes on points of order between the Opposition and Mr Speaker (Mr R. McKeen) and even between the Opposition and the Chairman of Committees (Mr C. L. Catr) while Mr Speaker has been absent from the Chamber. The most serious occurred on question and answer day” last Wednesday. Mr Speaker had had circulated to all members the rulefe of procedure governing the asking of questions. Previously, he had stopped the reading of several questions, and with the issue of the circular he made it obvious that he intended to allow members less latitude with their questions in the future than they had enjoyed m the ” Opposition members claimed that it would be unfair so to curb members unless Ministers, in their replies, were put under similar restraints. What was sauce for the goose was also sauce for the Government propaganda, claimed Mr M. H. Oram (Opposition, Manawatu), who was the leader in a volume of complaints. The matter has been made more serious by the fact that the two replies the Opposition objected to had both come from Mr Fraser himself. Mr Oram and others claimed that Mr Fraser had two replies on the supplementary order paper which, dealing with Maori problems, introduced extraneous matter for the sake of propaganda and also broke the rule that both questions and answers should be concise. Mr Speaker’s, ruling on the point of order, which the Opposition took very seriously, was not popularly received. Later in the week, the Chairman of Committees (Mr Carr) was quite testy, for him, in a similar exchange with Mr J. T. Watts (Opposition, St. Albans) and finally closed a brisk discussion bv saying that if members were not satisfied with his rulings from the chair they had a remedy which they knew how to use. No one chose to use it. National Military Service With their Address-in-Reply speeches safely tifbked away in Hansard, members will be able this week to concentrate for a change on legislation and the several bills now before the House promise solid but unexciting fare for the next few days. Some in the lobbies believe that after the speech bydhe Minister of Defence (Mr F. Jones) last week, some more definite indication of its views on national military service will b; given by the Government as a whole. It is significant that no member of the Labour Party has yet expressed himself in the House as against conscription, and several, including the Junior Whip (Mr D. G. Connolly) have spoken in favour of it.

As a footnote to the week’s reporting, can be put the following comment by Mr D. W- Coleman (Government, Gisborne) in his Address-in-Reply speech. Far from being neglectful of its responsibilities towards the country’s defence, the Government had taken the advice of all the experts it could, said Mr Coleman. For naval advice, they had had the benefit of the ideas, Mr Coleman claimed, of the eminent First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir Ben Lockspeiser—a piece of Naval intelligence which had not previously been announced from Whitehall.