PROMPT TERMINATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20341, 23 August 1929, Page 10

PROMPT TERMINATION.

CITY COUNCIL MEETING.

NOTICES OF MOTION LAPSE.

Unwilling to broach questions which might have provoked discussion occupying at least four hours, the Auckland City Council last evening seized on the formality which requires assent from the meeting for the continuation of the sitting after three hours.

Eight notices of motion were shelved with some warmth at 10 o'clock, after a few councillors who were watching the clock had kept up a running fire of trivialities. -It was apparent that the majority was not hankering to open controversies in the eleventh hour, and the council, which lias previously treated the 10 o'clock formality very flippantly, suddenly embraced the opportunity it offered and went home.

Six of the notices of motion were lodged by Mr. J. R. Lundon, one by Miss A. Basten, and one by Mr. W. K. Murray. In each case the mover would have been entitled to speak for 20 minutes in opening and for 10 minutes in reply—one-sided procedure which alone might have absorbed four hours in the aggregate. All obvious business concluded a few minutes before 10 o'clock, leaving only the item "questions" sandwiched between a committee report and the formidable list of notices of motion. Normally, the council is comfortably into its stride by 10 o'clock, but last evening interest lagged at question time. There were some irrelevancies, and when the hour was reached the Mayor, Mr. G. Baildon, promptly put the familiar formula: "Is it the wish of the council that the meeting shall continue?" There appeared to be a note of more than ordinary relief in the emphatic negative which was shot back.