Bills for Next Session.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 5009, 17 May 1889, Page 3

Bills for Next Session.

The New Zealand Times, the “ Government organ,’’ says that arang the more prominent business which will be brought forward are the following Bills : —Electoral, Hospitals, Charitable Aid, Chattel Securities, Patents, Industrial Designs and Trade Marks, Medical Practitioners, Copyright, and Libel Act Amendment. It is understood that the Civil Service Eeform and Classification Bill will also bo among the number. As already mentioned these bills have not been formally approved by the Cabinet, so any sketch of their provisions must necessarily bo taken as only approximately accurate. The Electoral Bill, will in all probability, be a very close reproduction of last year’s Bill. The Bare system will again bo proposed for adoption in a somewhat modified shape, but it not yet decided what size the districts will be, or how they shall be grouped. The provisions in reference to hospitals and charitable aid will bo embodied in two distinct Bills, instead of being lumped together in one measure as at present. Both will be framed on the lines indicated by the Premier in the Hawera speech, and both will be based on tho same main principle. Tho intention is to simplify administration, to vest it more in local bodies than at present, and to adopt the system of subsidising in proportion to the number of cnees dealt with—of patients in the one instance, and of paupers in tho other —and not merely in proportion to the sums raised locally by subscription or otherwise. The pauper farm scheme has been referred to before, ns has also the proposal to charge on tho Consolidated Eund certain specified cases of hopeless pauperism.

By the Cba'tcl Securities Bill the laws relating to this subject will be consolidated and simplified so as to lessen the heavy expenses now often associated with bills of sale. This will partly bo effected by introducing a new method of definition, intorpro-. tation and specification, which will obviate to a great extent the present need of voluminous and elaborate descriptions in the bills of sale.

Consolidation and simplification will also be mainly aimed at in the measure relative to patents, industrial designs, trade marks, &o. Tho provisions now in force in Groat Britain will, so far as practicable, be incorporated in the proposed new legislation on these points.

In the Libel Law Amendment Bill the provisions of the new English Act will be adopted, as also certain other provisions previously existing in the English Libel Law, hut not in that of New Zealand. Tho effect will be to render the libel law of this Colony virtually identical with that- of tho Mother Country. One of the earliest measuees to be introduced will be the Medical Practitioners Bill, which provides for the establishment and incorporation of a Medical Council, and for the manner in whielrthe Medical Kegister is to bo carried on.