CURTAIN RUNG DOWN

Northern Advocate, 10 November 1934, Page 8

CURTAIN RUNG DOWN

SESSION CLOSES LAST MINUTE RUSH. ELEVEN BILLS PASSED. [From Our Parliamentary Special.] WELLINGTON, This Day. In a last-minute rush the House of Representatives passed eleven bills yesterday, and these were all dealt with at intervals by the Legislative Council, which sat until a late hour last night. The net result was that after a formal sitting of the house this morning the legislative benches will be cleared until February next, when the session will be resumed. The principal business then will be the passing of a bill to set up the National Mortgage Corporation, a proposal which is an integral part of the Government plan for relieving the farmers, particularly those engaged in the dairy industry. Only one bill commanded any attention in the House yesterday, and that was the Agricultural '[Emergency Powers) Bill, which set up a supreme ■ body, to be known as the !Executive Commission' of Agriculture, to deal with everything that js produced on the farms of the Dominion. Objections to the absolute power given to the commission were met by the Government by placing the Minister of Agriculture in the position of chairman of this commission, which will now comprise four persons. It has been proposed to drop the provision demanding the whole time and attention of members of the commission to be given to its business, but insistent demands from members, headed by Mr C, W. "Wilkinson, resulted in this clause being reinstated in the bill.

The Opposition opposed the passing of the measure on the grounds that while organisation was needed and was desirable, the first essential was relief for the farmer. To this the Government replied that the organisation was necessary, so that the amount of relief could be gauged. The Cinematograph Films Amendment Bill, providing for a statutory test of contract conditions for the hiring of picture films, was passed with very little ado, and so were the Noxious Weeds Amendment Bill and the three “Washing-up” Bills, Land, Local and Native, which caused no comment whatever. Five local bills, four of them validation measures, and the fifth practically a Government measure, went flying through. DAIRY CONFERENCES. THE BOARD AND THE REPORT. REMARKS BY MR FULTON. [Special to “Northern Advocate.”] HAMILTON, This Day. “As the whole of the Dairy Board conferences will be held within the next three weeks, I am hoping that the producers will serious consideration to the commission’s Teport and will be prepared to make such recommendations as they consider would be for the betterment of the industry,” said Mr Dynes Fulton, chairman of directors of the New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Company, and deputy-chairman of the Dairy Produce Board, in ah interview, Mr Fulton said that he would be leaving for Dunedin tomorrow evening, and the first conference would be held there on Wednesday morning. It was expected that the Dairy Board ward conferences would be very well attended by directors and dairy producers in the respective districts, when they would have an excellent opportunity of discussing the recommendations submitted by the Dairy Commission. “I would like to clear up a misunderstanding that has got abroad from a remark made by me when speaking at the official opening of the Pukekawa Hall,” said Mr Fulton. “The whole of my remarks were not published, but they were applied entirely to my belief that the Government would give the producers a fair deal as regards giving the dairy industry an opportunity of reviewing the commission’s report prior to any legislation being placed on the Statute Book. “I want to make it quite clear that I have from the time the report first appeared opposed the setting up of a supreme council to control pastoral export products, and the altered proposal is in my mind no improvement of the first suggestion of three members, as there will still be a Govern-ment-controlled council. However, the dairy industry has now a good opportunity to give full consideration to ’ what is of vital importance to those engaged in it.”