THE DAY IN PARLIAMENT

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 14, 18 January 1922, Page 7

THE DAY IN PARLIAMENT

What Parliament accomplished yesterday was of comparatively little importance beside what the"'Government proposed. What it did was to wrangle in the good old way about the right* and wrongs of discharged soldier, settlement; to pass the Public Trustee Amendment Bill, after somewhat keen Committee consideration by legal members of the machinery clauses; to pass the Companies Amendment Bill and the Country Telephone Lines Amendment Bill (-which had a.mixed reception);' Wihat the Government proposed were the reductions in Public Service pay outlined in the Public Expenditure Adjustment Bill, and important alterations of the law respecting the settlement' of discharged soldiers. ' The retrenchment proposals, which had an- initial opposition from Labour, are briefly: 10 per cent, off ealaries of Ministers, members of Parliament, the higheet-paid Civil servants; lower percentages'off other salaries, and the withdrawal of the £50' bonus granted in ,1920, in three instalments, at intervals of three mojnths. The, Tramways Amendment Bill and two others!of local interest were also introduced. The House rose at 0.10 aJm'., with the" knowledge that what it had done that night was little compared with what it had yet to do. ~ • ' ' ' - , ■ : '.