POLITICAL NOTES.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume VII, Issue 2030, 17 August 1920, Page 10

POLITICAL NOTES.

WORK FOR THIS WEEK. INCIDENCE OF TAXATION. IFrom Onr Own Parliamentary Reporter.] WELLINGTON, August IC. It is the Government's intention to employ this week in the House of Representatives largely in cleaning up the Order Paper. Some newBills will, however, be introduced, although nothing of a very important nature is expected. Of the measures now standing on the Order Paper, the most important are the Civil List Bill and the Iminif ration Restriction Amendment Bill, he first, which has to do with the salaries of members of both Houses of the Legislature, may quite posfibly be amended by the House of tepresentatives. As it stands, it proposes a salary of £450 per annum for members of the popular Chamber, whereas hon. members have an idea that they are worth £SOO. It may be that the Prime Minister (Rt. Hon. \V. F. Massey) will elect to put upon the House the responsibility of deciding what the salary is to be A largely-signed petition •which members presented to Mr! Massey last Session named £SOO as a reasonable salary, and even the I Labour organisations have accorded their support to that figure. If the firivate member's salary be increased o £SOO per annum, it seems reasonable to suppose that the House will also be in favour of increasing the £ISOO at present paid to the Prime Minister. In recent debates, when the matter has been indirectly touched upon, the opinion has been expressed that the Prime Minister should be paid more than he is. Immigration Matters.

As for the immigration restriction proposals, this Bill will have to be sent Home for the Imperial assent after it has been put through here, *o that the Government will naturally want to get it away as soon as possible. The suggestion has been made that the Bill will not tend to stay the influx of Asiatic immigrants from countries that are under the British flag, since persons of British birth are not, to be seriously hindered from landing in New Zealand. That, however, is not the case, for the Bill contains the following subsection:—

A person shall not be deemed to be of British birth or parentage by reason that he or bis parents, or either of them, is a naturalised "British subject, or by reason that he is an aboriginal native or the descendant o>' «n aboriginal native of any Dominion, colony, or possession or protectorate of his Majesty. Taxation Proposals. '

The Public Accounts Committee of' the House has almost finished consideration of the Bill which is to alter the incidence of taxation in New Zealand, so that this measure wiil be one of the first of the Government's financial Bills to come down. There will follow a Death Duties Bill, the aim of which, it is understood, will be to increase the scale of death duties payable in the Dominion. This, however, has not yVt been before the Public Accounts Committee. The committee will alsohave to consider the Loan Bill—or Bills, for the Minister of Finance (HI. Hon. W. F. Massey) has not yet decided whether one or two Bills will be necessary for that purpose. Three Months' Work Yet. One by one, departmental reports are making their appearance, but three that the House is waiting for—the Railways Statement, the Defence Deport and the Education Report—are still among the treasures that the future holds. The Railways State--ment is being held up somewhat by the delay in the announcement of the new scale of charges, which the Minister is daily expecting from the department. As for the Defence Report, the present Minister of Defence (the Hon. Sir- Heaton Rhodes) has not been long' in office and it naturally takes him some time to get into the running again. However, the Defence Report will not deal .at* all with new matters of policy, and the Government's future defence proposal: will be introduced in a Bill. Although the House of Representatives has made wonderful progress since the commencement of the Session, there still remains plenty of work, and the Prime Minister sees no end to the Session until November.