PARLIAMENTARY NOTES.

Clutha Leader, Volume XLI, Issue 2, 14 July 1914, Page 5

PARLIAMENTARY NOTES.

The calls to -the Council will likely be .mactevpubric on Wednesday. Mr Hiley's report on the railways will be tabled in a week or'two, and is expected to make interesting reading.

There have been some protests from the Opposition members as to their positions on the various House Committees. Mr Isitt, at h'is suggestion, was taken off one committee and placed on another, the "House" Committee. As this is the committee which deals with Bellamy's some of the wags/ suggest that the quality of the whisky should now show a marked improvement. The Motor Registration Bill about to be introduced will, it is understood, provide for a substantial tax on motors on a graduated scale, but it is not yet known whether the graduated scale will be by horse-power: or otherwise. Mr G. W. Russell has challenged the right of the Government to 'raise the wages of policemen, but the Minister of Justice scored off him by quoting precedents by other Governments of Mr Russell's own colour. Indeed, Mr Russell was thought by his own side of the House to have made an unfortunate break, as everyone recognises that policemen were being underpaid.

The Bible-in-sehools Referendum Bill will come on next week, and its second reading will probably take up tlie time of the House for some little time. It is thought that it.will pass the second reading, but will be so twisted about in Committee as to emerge in an entirely new shape. There.is,, however, a considerable diversity of opinion about it, and many members consider the Bill will be killed on the second reading.