MAINTENANCE ORDERS.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 1941, 8 October 1921, Page 5

MAINTENANCE ORDERS.

AND WIPE DESERTERS. (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON. Last Night. In the House of Representatives tonight, the Hon. E. P. Leo (Minister •»£ Justice), moved the second reading or the Maintenance Orders (facilities for enforcement) Bill, which brought New Zealand into line with the Imperial legislation, making orders issued in other parts of the Empire for the maintenance of dependents enforceable in the Dominion, or vice versa. Power was given to attach interest in a life insurance policy for the benefit of the wife and children of a defaulting husband against whom an order was made. Mr G. Witty welcomed the Bill as affording fuller justice to women ana children who had been deserted. Messrs Sidey, Harris, Malcolm, and Wright supported the Bill. Mr Holland pointed out that the wife and children of a deserter required just the same sustenance as the widows and orphans of an epidemic victim, for instance. This was a matter the Government should pro. vide for. The Government, too, should pursue the deserter, and make him provide for his dependants. Deserters imprisoned should be usefully employed, and the value of their work should be credited to them, the Government then applying the money so earned to the support of the dependants. Mr Isitt advocated that wife desert, ers should be pursued, arrested, ami placed in stockades, where they should be forced to work, and if they would not 'work, they should be put on bread and water until they did. Messrs Lysnar and Bartram supported the measure, but the ' latter urged care in interfering with life insurance policies. The Minister replied, and the Bill was read a second time and referred to the Statutes Provision Committee.