PARLIAMENT

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 51, 24 February 1912, Page 5

PARLIAMENT

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL. (Per Press Association.) Wellington, February 23. The Council met at 2.30, and immediately adjourned, owing to the noconfidence debate proceeding. HOUSE OF REFRESEKTATIVES. The House met at 2.30 p.m. • The Minister of Labour, in answer to Mr. Glover, said that under the workers’ dwellings scheme, 73 houses ■were 1% the course of construction, and number of further applications had been received, but it ■would be too expensive to allow ap- > plicants to select single sites. The limit of six applications must be adhered to, otherwise the cost of supervision and collection would be too great. Altogether 126 applications were received under the present system, and he hoped by the end of the year that 250 houses would be erected and occupied. THE NO-CONFIDENCE MOTION. Mr. Isitt, resuming the debate on the Address-in-Reply, and the amendment thereto, complimented tiie mover and seconder on their speeches. The

reason why he could not remain silent was that a member of that House had been most cruelly and malignantly ■slandered. He did not wonder that the Opposition was elated, and he did not grudge them a little elation after their long period of melancholy. He proceeded to criticise the policy of the Opposition, which he described as a miserable attended policy. The arguments of the Opposition were a reproduction of the same old bone. They asked to be placed in power to carry out . a policy against which they had voted tooth and nail. He acceptwithout reservation, the statement oA the members of the Opposition that tl*v were not guilty of charges, of huffing slanders upon Sir Joseph Ward. Those slanders had been 'uttered, however, and the people outside the House placed their own interpretation upon them. He admitted that ■the Government had to a certain ex-

tent done work meet for repentance. He referred inter alia to the military scheme. He did not care what Government was in power. If . the Government Department attempted to/force the Territorial scheme in the, way it did, they would wreck the' whole scheme. He deprecated dealing with young lads who followed the dicta* of their fathers, as if they; were criminals, branding them at the outset of their lives as’ criminals. He proceeded to criticise the Reform Party, and ‘asked where the reform came in Their platform was meagre, and they sought power on the strength of it..