THE DAY IN PARLIAMENT

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 34, 8 August 1925, Page 7

THE DAY IN PARLIAMENT

Once » Government gets its Estimates (through the House of Representatives the end of a session has practically been xeached. A step towards the end of the present session waa inaugurated yesterday, when the House went into Committee of Supply on this year's Estimates, but made very heavy weather of it. On the first item, that of the Legislative Department, there was » very wide range of discussion from •hort trousers for Senior Cadets to •bolition of the Legislative Council. Members were on their best talkative behaviour, and seemed to show little desire to hasten progress towards that bourne of the General Election from Which, haply, some of them may never roturn alive politically. A hostile amendment from the Labour benches, directed against the Upper House, provoked a discussion which had its humorous sidelights, but left the "Lords" safe and sound, and then Mr. Holland sought to convert Parliament into a "Star Chamber" until the Press learned how to give long reports to dreary propagandist speeches, but the House by 33 votes to 18 decided that the liberties of the newspapers should remain untrammelled—at least, until Labour comes into power. At 12.15 a.m. the vote for the Legislative Department -was agreed to, and after that the- Treasury, Land and Income Tax, and Public Buildings classes were disposed of, although the process took an hour to accomplish. Ventilating a grievance that injustice was perpetrated in the elevation of certain of his constituents to the high, mighty, and. august office of Justice of the Peace, | Mr. J. R. Corrigan, the member for Patea, precipitated a wrangle which, took three-quarters of an hour to settle. By five minutes past 2 the vote for the Justice Department was put through, and five minutes later the House rose until 2.30 p.m. next Thursday, the Prime Minister suggesting an adjournment until then on account of the visit of the American fleet.