NOT SATISFACTORY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 90, 14 March 1935, Page 8

NOT SATISFACTORY

NEW RELIEF BILL. PROCEEDINGS IN CAUCUS. (By Telegraph.—Special to Standard.) WELLINGTON, March 13. A second Government Caucus held to-day for a further discussion of the Rural Mortgagors Bill corroborates a report that the first Caucus yesterday was far from satisfactory to Cabinet. Actually only one private member expressed his agreement with the measure as submitted. While the criticism in the House itself is mainly against the onerous conditions to which the protected mortgagor must submit himself during the five-vear period, it is understood that the Caucus criticism was centred more against the indefinite nature of the Bill's proposals in regard to the mortgagor’s equity at the end of the five-year period. The ra.nk and file opinion in the Coalition is such that it is not an exaggeration to suggest that if the Government persists with the measure in its present form it will suffer defeat. One Auckland member definitely declared himself and asked what his position would be if he voted against the Bill. It is also felt among Government supporters that the Bill is altogether too indefinite in its terms and would involve the Court of Review in insoluble problems, while there is a _ growing feeling that the Finance Minister is presuming too much on party loyalty in expecting support for a measure so experimental and incomplete. Consequently. the suggestion in the House last night from Mr IV. A. Yeitch, that the Prime Minister should exercise his prerogative and seriously overhaul the position of the Ministry, is not being ridiculed as happens _to most crossbench suggestions, but is regarded as a matter for consideration.