Session Incidents Queries and Asides

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 409, 18 July 1928, Page 13

Session Incidents Queries and Asides

(TUB SUN’S Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, To-day. New legislation made its first appearance before the present session yesterday, when 12 measures of varying importance were bro*«ght forward. The principal Bills were the Mental Defectives Bill and the Municipal Corporations Amendment. The former seeks to provide, among other things, for the registration and supervision of the mentally unfit outside the mental hospitals, the prohibition of the marriage of the mentally unfit, and for their voluntary sterilisation. The Municipal Corporations Act Amendment Bill follows the lines of a number of-recommendations made at the municipal conference. A great part of the sitting was taken up on the discussion of the report of the Royal Commission on Samoa. The House rose at 11.40 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. to-morrow. Lessees’ 1 Safeguards Relief to a lessee against the inequitable refusal of a lessor to grant a renewal of a lease on the ground of the lessee's breach of covenant is the aim of the Property Law Amendment Bill, which was introduced in the House late last night. The Bill provides that the lessee may apply to the Court, which will decide whether the lease should be renewed. m * Mass of Petitions A mass of petitions praying for abolition of the Postal Department’s cash-on-delivery system was put before the House to-day. Some 20 members participated in the bombardment, the large number of signatures to several of the petitions suggesting that they represented a large body of the public. Committees of the House Ministers spent some time to-day giving notice of committees to be set. up to discuss various questions. The setting up of committees is a regular routine business undertaken at the start of each session. Members are not, as is sometimes imagined, paid extra for their services on these committees. Three Millions to Invest Has the Bank of New Zealand £3.000,000 to invest? This, the substance of a question asked by Mr. W. Lee Martin (Raglan), caused a chuckle to rise from the Reform benches. Mr. Martin wished to know if the bank’s excess of deposits over advances was such that it had an agent in Australia, seeking openings for the investment of £3,000,000. Native Interests The native members, Sir Apirana Ngata and Mr. H. W. Uru, to-day broke a silence that had lasted since the opening of the session. .Neither had offered comment on matters hitherto before the House, but this afternoon the presentation of a batch of native petitions gave them opportunity to recite some needs of the moment.

Brilliant Men Go “We are losing some of our most brilliant young men,” said the Hon. A. D. McLeod, reflecting, when the Bills dealing with surveyors and surveying were before the House, that there is a big demand for New Zealand surveyors from Australia, Kenya, and the Straits Settlements. In the two Bills which provide for incorporation of the surveyors’ institute, consolidation of examination standards, and other matters, are clauses designed to safeguard the status of th-e profession and the welfare of its members. Sir John Luke and the Hon. D. Buddo express'

the hope that old practical suvvevand returned soldiers would, not be victimised.