PARLIAMENT.

Colonist, Volume LVI, Issue 13510, 2 July 1914, Page 6

PARLIAMENT.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

(Special to "The Colonist.")

Wellington, July 1. The Address in Reply debate ,was resumed in the House of Representatives and in -the .Legislative Council this afternoon.

The proceedings in the Upper House were not of outstanding interest, and 'it is probable that an adjournment of a few days will bo taken if the.no-con-fidence debate hv the House shows signs of continuing vigorously. As for the House of Representatives, it resumed the debate without much preliminary work. Mr Veitch gave notice to introduce the Proportional Representation and Effective Voting Bill. Then Mr Wilford gave the debate a vigorous start, and Mr Myers followed with an interesting speech on finance and naval affairs.

Among the subsequent speakers was Mr McCallum (Wairau), who accused the Minister of Finance of carefully hiding from a Blenheim audience the fact that favourable figures which he quoted in regard to loan realisations were in regard to long-dated loans, whereas the higher rate of a Liberal loan was in respect to a v short*d,ated loan. Another bit of misrepresentation which the audience realised and received in chilly silence was that Liberal Governments had not spent a penny upon acquiring land in Wairau for close settlement. As a fact, Wairau was the home" of close settlement, £500,000 having been spent there for that purpose. Mr McCallum warmly condemned the Government's mismanagement of the watersiders' strike. The Government laid itself out to smash the unions and deplete their funds. No doubt the strike was the height of folly ,but that was no reason for unjustly fettering labour. The final speaker, for the day was Mr Veitoh, Labour member for Wanganui, who frankly advocated a combination with the Liberals to overcome, as he said the political dishonesty perpetuated' by the repeal "of the Second Ballot Act. The majority of the workers disapproved of the strike, but they were solidly opposed to the Government because of its sins of omission in regard to them. The Government simply existed for the- large landowners who backed it.