DAY IN PARLIAMENT

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 11, 13 July 1939, Page 8

DAY IN PARLIAMENT

DEFENCE THE MAIN TOPIC

Defence was the main topic of discussion in the House of Representatives yesterday, when the Address-in-Reply debate was continued. Mr. J, M: Allen (National, Hauraki), who made his maiden speech in the House, set the ball rolling with a strong advocacy of a system of universal military training and subsequent speakers added their views, individual and party, to consideration of the subject, A new note was struck by Mrs. Catherine Stewart (Government, Wellington West), who was also making her first speech in the House, and'who dwelt, on the necessity of securing peace rather than of building up defence forces to win a possible war. For upwards of three-quarters of an hour she held the floor and acquitted herself well, a> fact which the House acknowledged with* a round of applaiise even more generous than that usually accorded a new member.

A critical examination of the Government's policy, particularly .in the realm of finance, was made by Mr. C. A. Wilkinson (Independent, Egroont). but numerically the odds were in favour of the Government, Mr. E, L. Cullen (Hawke's Bay), Mr. E. P. Meachen (Marlborough), and Dr. D, G. McMillan (Dunedin West) adding their weight on its behalf.

With the adjournment of the debate at 10.27 p.m., twenty-eight speakers had taken part in the proportion of approximately two to one for the Government.