WORK OF PARLIAMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15950, 22 June 1915, Page 9

WORK OF PARLIAMENT.

NON-PARTY MEASURES.

MR. MASSEY'S. STATEMENT.

[BY TELEGRAPH.— CORRESPONDENT.]

Wellington, Monday. Parliament will be opened by commission on Thursday, and the event of the day in. the House of Representatives is the election of Speaker. The Speaker in the last Parliament has not arrived in Wellington to-day, but it is generally assumed that he will accept nomination fc/r the Speakership again, and that he will be elected as a matter of course. The Prime Minister informed a reporter to-day that the Government would not introduce any measures properly described as party legislation. He took it that taxing Bills to provide the necessary revenue for war purposes would not bo called party legislation in the ordinary sense of the word. One of the first Bills to be introduced will be that designed to make our military pensions more liberal. The Minister for Defence . expressed a hope that New Zealand may be able to come to some arrangement with the Commonwealth, so that there may bo one pensions scale for the two Pacific Dominions. There will be a Land Bill, but it will not be contentious. The Bill will simply make it possible • for soldiers on active service to take part in land ballots during, their absence from New Zealand. The i Prime Minister has lately explained a [scheme for allowing returned soldiers to , take up land, and he stated yesterday that it might Be necessary for the Government to purchase land for this purpose. The area reserved for soldiers will probably amount to not less than 100,000 acres. Minor amendments are to be proposed in the War Regulations Act. The Mortagages Extension Act, which has been found to work inequitably, will be reviewed, and the House will be asked to amend it in the direction of giving the Court more powers. The Enemy Contracts Bill is a new measure to give the Government power to declare void any contract made with an enemy. The Cook Islands Government Bill, held over from last'year, will probably be reintroduced. It is a measure which proposes to give the islands local government and a code of laws, and to remove many of the anomalies now existing in the control of the islands.

TAUMARUNUI SEAT.

ELECTORAL FORMALITIES.

[BY tjiegbath,— ASSOCIATION'.'] Wellington, Monday. It is possible that the newly-elected member for Taumarunui will not" be able to take his seat when Parliament meets on Thursday, owing to the delay in the counting of the absentee votes. Sixtyeight absent voters' permits were used in connection with the by-election, and the papers have to reach the returning officer through the post from various parts of the Dominion. The delay does not end there, for the final\count cannot take place until the unused ballot papers have been returned, with the prescribed form, from post offices. Every post office in New Zealand had to be supplied with the papers, in case an absent voter should demand one.