EXTRA EDITION. PARLIAMENT

Evening Post, Volume XC, Issue 83, 6 October 1915, Page 8

EXTRA EDITION. PARLIAMENT

TO-DAY'S PROCEEDINGS LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL The Speaker resumed the chair at 2.30 o'clock this afternoon. The West Coast Settlement Reserves Amendment Bill, the Native Land Amendment, and Native Land Claims Adjustment Bill, the Friendly Societies Amendment Bill, the Education Reserves Amendment Bill, and the Lake Coleridge Water-Power Bill were read a first time. The Counties Amendment Bill, a first and second time (pro forma), and referred to the Statutes Revision Committee. (Proceeding.) HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES The House of Representatives eat at 2.30 p.m. to-day. •Mr. C. J. Parr asked the Minister for Munitions if the Department was prepared to consider the manufacture of bombs. He said that an Auckland firm was able to manufacture them. • The Minister for Munitions (the Hon. A. M. Myers) replied that until the Army Council made its report it was impossible to give a definite public answer. Mr. E. Newman asked if provision could be made to validate the wills of soldiers who were under 21 years of age. The Minister for Defence said he -would consult the Attorney-General to see what could be done. Replying to Mr. Payne, the Hon. A. M. Myers said that the report of the recent enquiry into a Defence stores matter was a departmental report, and was now being considered by Cabinet. Dr. Thacker asked if the Alien Enemy Teachers Bill would be proceeded with this session. The Prime Minister assured the member an opportunity would be given to deal with it this session. Mr. G. V. Pearce asked if the attention of the Defence Minister had been called to a report of the utterances of a minister of religion,' delivered at Pahiatua, suggesting that a limit of 1000 should be placed upon the number of Maoris enlisting, to save them from being wiped out,. The Minister of Defence repKed that he had seen the paragraph, but had not considered it to be of sufficient importance to take particular notice of it. He considered that the Natives would not thank anybody who desired to exclude them from the privilege— he believed the Natives looked upon it as a privilege — of fighting alongside their pakeha brothers. Mr. T. Parata (Southern Maori) said that from what he had heard the Maori people were prepared, as long as the Empire was covered by the cloud of war, to take their part in the conflict. Mr. T. M." Wilford asked the Defence Minister if the names of 13 men, comprising military guards, and Red Cross men, who had returned in the Aparima would be published. He said that one man, a military policeman, who was at the moment in the precincts of the House had been debarred from the place to which he had gone on coming here. This man had nothing to do with the other cases returned on the Aparima. It was a case of hardship. He did not want to' go further into the matter.. The Minister, said that the names of the thirteen men would be published. It should have been done long ago. (Proceeding.)