PARLIAMENT

Evening Star, Issue 22808, 17 November 1937, Page 7

PARLIAMENT

x YESTERDAY'S SITTINGS THE ESTIMATES [Per United Press Association.] WELLINGTON, November 16. The House met at 2.30 ip.m. The Wellington Diocesan Board or Trustees (Church of England) Empowering Bill (Mr Chapman) was read a second time and referred to the Committee of Selection. Mr Sexton gave notice to ask the Minister of Agriculture whether, in view of the shortage of farm labour in New Zealand, the Government would consider paying the fares of suitable men. from Australia to relieve the position. Eight days’ leave of absence was granted Mr Henare on account of illness. On the motion of the Prime Minister, urgency was granted the passing of 13 clauses of the Estimates. Discussing the vote of £9,400 for the Public Service Commissioners’ Office, the Prime Minister, Mr Savage, said that the reclassification of the Civil Service was just about completed, Ind would be available shortly, and he stated that the Public Service Commissioners’ list of boys who merited to enter the Civil Service was just about exhausted. He did not think it was useless for young people to attempt to gain entrance to the Civil Service. As long as their qualifications were in order they would be placed as soon as an opportunity for doing so presented itself. The vote was passed. The next vote on the order paper was that of External Affairs, £246,321. With reference to the question of the health of the Cook Islanders, Mr Savage said the Government was not letting the grass grow under its feet in providing decent standards for these people, and the matter of providing a wireless service for the Islands would not be overlooked. In answer to a question by Mr Holland, Mr Savage said the grant of £IO,OOO to advance the fruit scheme in the Cook Islands was for replanting. He assured the House that the Maui Pomare was proving a great financial success, and was not a white elephant, as it had been under previous Governments. _ _ , Mr Holland criticised the proposal to erect a cool store for fruit on Rarotonga at a cost of £35,000. A wild-cat scheme had been mentioned of bringing _ fruit in from the outer islands and storing it at Rarotofiga, but Mr Holland considered this to be an unsound proposition, because it would merely double the freight charges on that fruit. Mr Savage intimated _ that the. Government was not spending the money for the spending’s sake, and he would again check up on the proposal to erect the cool store mentioned by the previous speaker. Mr Richards criticised the treatment of fruitgrowers in the Cook Islands by former Governments, and he congratulated the Government on providing £21,666 for the maintenance of plantations He expressed the opinion that the treatment meted out- to the planters in the past was such that there was no encouragement to keep their plantations up to date, and a tremendous loss to New Zealand had been the result. The Chairman of Committees, Mr Howard: That is not on the Estimates. The vote was passed. CHANGE OVER TO SHEEP. Mr Cobbe asked the Minister if his attention had been directed to the number of small dairy farmers with 40 to 50 cows who were selling their herds and going in for sheep. The Minister, in reply, said he did not think there was any cause for worry about the small dairy farmers' going in for sheep. These changes over were always occurring. During the depression many sheep farmers had taken up dairy fanning in a small way, but now, with increased prices for wool, they were giving up their herds. He did not think there was any cause for alarm about this change. Mr C. H. Burnett suggested that a chair of veterinary surgery_ should _be established at Otago University, in view of the immense value of our primary products and the fact that we had at present to send our students overseas for training in this branch of science. The vote was passed and the House was commencing consideration of the vote of £386,000 for the Department of Lands and Survey when the adournment was reached at 5.30 p.m. LAND CLASSIFICATION. When the House resumed at 7.30 p.m. it continued the discussion of the vote for the Lands and Survey Department. The Leader of the Opposition, Mr Hamilton, said it would bo interesting to know if the Minister had in mind some system of classification of lands. Land settlement, he said, was not going on to any great extent, and there was still plenty of land which awaited development. He urged' the Minister to continue with the small farm development policy, asserting that no section of the community had been less affected during the recent depression than the small farmers. The Minister of Lands, Mr Langstone, referring to land settlement, said there- were ,36,000 Crown tenants throughout tlie Dominion. This number had been increased by 1,300 last year. The question of classification of lands was a big one," which h© thought should be, son© into, but he doubted if there would be a chance of considering it during the present Parliament. Another question which would have to be considered was that of uneconomic farms. The Minister stated most of the development was going on with regard to dairying, and with the guaranteed price nothing was being left to chance. Referring to the question of giving the titles of the land to men who had been working on the land development areas, ho stated that large sums of public money had been expended on stumping and grassing such areas. In fact, as much development had been done in two years as normally would