LITTLE PROGRESS IN HOUSE

Taranaki Daily News, 11 October 1929, Page 12

LITTLE PROGRESS IN HOUSE

AX EXPERIMENT THAT FAILED. (By Wire. —Parliamentary Reporter). Wellington, Last Night. It becomes more and more apparent as the session advances that real progress with the legislation and general business of the Government cannot be made unless the Standing Orders are suspended whenever anything important is to be discussed in order to enable the House to sit past the fixed daily hour of adjournment. To-day the Government tried the experiment of not moving the suspension of the Standing Orders when eight or nine classes of the Estimates had been nominated as the day’s work, and the result was that only two classes were passed. The main highways revenue fund estimates had been under discussion for several hours when the Hon. T. M. Wilford found cause, half an hour before the time for the adjournment arrived, to draw attention to the slowness of the progress. It really did not matter, he remarked, whether the House finished the estimates''in one, two, three, four or five days. So far as the Government was concerned it did not wish to hurry the business and take advantage ■ of anybody. It- wanted to see the fullest discussion. Unfortunately, it had been necessary to ask for urgency and have the Standing Orders suspended, and the result had been tha t they had been able to get certain legislation through the House, though it had taken them into late hours.

Mr. Wilford said that that day the Government had thought it would try the experiment by not asking for urgency, and they could see the result. He expressed regret but not annoyance. The matter was one for the House and not for the Government. If they . thought they had done a good day’s work that was all right, but the House must not complain if the Government asked for urgency when no progress could be made without it.