PARLIAMENT AT WORK

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 250, 16 July 1920, Page 8

PARLIAMENT AT WORK

FAST PROGRESS ON BILLS THE RIGHTS OF ALIENS WOMEN ACQUIRING FOREIGN NATIONALITY A few. more days of such rapid progress -with the business before the House tf Representatives as was made yesterday would very rapidly clear the order paper. Thursday is reserved for local Bills, but none of them were ready for consideration, and a number of Bills by private members wore taken. • They were all little Bills, and they 'were given second readings by the House without opposition. 1 The way wag clear early in the cay for Government business, and it appeared that all the Bills with which the Government were ready to go 011 with were finished before the House rose. First there was the third reading of tho Revocation of Naturalisation Amendment Bill. The motion was discussed more than any othor before tho House. A number of Liberal members tried to persuade the Minister to accept an amendment to permit of aggrieved aliens denaturalised in accordance with the provisions of the law having a Tight to appeal to tho Court, but this the Minister would not do, pointing out that sometimes the Government had to make a decision on evidence which could not be submitted to a Court because of its confidential character, There was yet another Bill dealing with aliens —the Registration of Aliens Amendment Bill— and again it appeared that the people at whom the Bills were specially aimed had friends in the House, Women take the nationality of their husbands, and tho Bill proposed that any women of British nationality marrying an alien should be subject to the same requirements as to registration to which aliens are already subject. This was opposed on various grounds, chiefly by the labour members. Urgency .was claimed for, the Customs Amendment Bill, to remove anomalies in the. assessment: of Customs duties owing to the exchange rates between New Zealand and foreign countries, and the Bill was put through all stages. • The House rose at 9.30 p.m.