TRAVEL PERMITS FOR CHILDREN

Southland Times, Issue 25434, 5 August 1944, Page 6

TRAVEL PERMITS FOR CHILDREN

SCHOOL HOLIDAY REQUIREMENTS

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, August 4. After two questions had been asked in the House of Representatives this morning, members continued the debate on the Finance Bill, the first clause of which was still under discussion. Replying to an urgent question by Mr F. W. Doidge (Nat., Tauranga), the Minister of Railways (the Hon. R. Semple) said that the Railways De-partment-was making arrangements to transport school children between their schools and their home stations for the August term holidays. Mr Doidge also asked if provision could be made for parents to travel by railway while their children were on holiday, but Mr Semple said that the coal shortage prevented this being done. Mr W. A. Bodkin (Nat., Central (Otago) asked the Minister if the provision applied to university students. Mr Semple said that provision had been made for all children and the department would endeavour to provide travel facilities for adult students. Mr T. H. McCombs (Lab., Lyttelton) gave notice to ask the Minister of Broadcasting whether he would arrange that serials presented early in the evening were such that they might reasonably be listened to by children. Mr McCombs added: “Serials portraying careers of gangsters and those featuring violent family quarrels are considered highly undesirable by many authorities.” Resuming the debate on the short title of the Finance Bill, Mr Doidge again questioned the policy of introducing retrospective legislation. N.Z. FLAX INDUSTRY After several Opposition members had criticized the proposals in the Bill on the development of the flax industry, the Minister of Finance (the Hon. W. Nash), in reply, asked what the Opposition wanted done about the flax industry. The House had agreed in the past to the voting of funds for the purchase of an estate at Foxton, but the Auditor-General had stated that the Government'had no power to start an industry. As the industry was already operating and supplying die Dominion’s woolpacks the Government had to take that power. The Government was merely asking for the right to do what it'had been doing in the past. If the Opposition had its way and rejected the clause they would have to close the industry down. In effect, the Opposition had been telling the country that the flax industry ought not to be run in this country. Opposition members: No. Mr Nash said that private enterprise had proved its inability to operate the industry although the Government had given every assistance. “When the economy of this country depends on a certain thing which private enterprise cannot bring into being the Government will bring it into being.” He said that if the Opposition did not support the establishment of the industry there was only one thing it could do. Mr Nash added that that was to vote against the clause, but the Government would not i let the flax industry or the woolgrowers | of New Zealand down. I Replying to a claim by a member, of | the Opposition that New Zealand wool- ; packs were 2/- higher than packs in | Australia, Mr Nash said that Australian | prices ranged from 6/9 to 7/5, while i the New Zealand price was 7/-. PRODUCE MARKETING “This is nothing short of national burglary,” declared Mr W. Sullivan (Nat., Bay of Plenty) in discussing the Government’s produce agreement with Britain. The Government, he said, had obtained a lift-up of prices for primary produce and then said the primary producers should not receive the additional ,sum. In effect, the workers of Britain had been asked to pay an increased price for New Zealand produce to keep this country solvent. Although the primary producers would continue to co-operate with the Government during the war they would want something better when the time came. Mr Sullivan claimed that the additional payment the Government would receive from Britain represented about 4ld per lb butterfat, while the increased cost allowance was less than twopence. Mr W. M. C. Denham (Lab., Invercargill) said that the Opposition were taking the attitude that the increased payment by way of cost adjustment, to which Britain had agreed, belonged wholly to the farmers and should be paid to Apparently, if there was a surplus in the marketing accounts, the farmers were to receive it all, but if there were difficulties in the primary industry the farmers should come to the Government to help them out. Actually, nobody in the country was getting .more help, more subsidies and more bolstering-up by the Government than were the farmers.