PARLIAMENT DAY BY DAY.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 18834, 24 March 1931, Page 6

PARLIAMENT DAY BY DAY.

POINTS IN MEMBERS’ SPEECHES. (Prom Our Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, March 23. In a Cleft Stick. "There is no doubt about it—the Labour Party have bad the Government in a cleft stick for the past two years,” remarked Mr J. A. Nash (Reform, Palmerston) in the House of Representatives. "They have made a welter of it all the time, and I don’t blame them. If they could get away with it, so much the better. . . It was a question of power with the Government, and never mind the cost, and the people of New Zealand are paying for that to-day. The Government wanted to be in power ,the Labour Party wanted to have it their own way, the Labour Party got what they wanted, and so the Government remained in power.” A Song in Unison. Voicing sympathy with the Prime Minister and his colleagues in the position in which they now And themselves, the Labour member for Napier, Mr W. E. Barnard, said in the House of Representatives that he could not help feeling that the difficulties and perplexities of the situation had been *>o much for them. "Sir Otto Niemeyer here in New Zealand,” he said, “the financial big-wigs in Britain, the Press of both Britain and New Zealand, the Employers’ Federation, Chambers of Commerce, such aristocratic bagmen as my Lord all sing one song in unison. In face of the crescendo of sound, the Prime Minister and his colleagues gave way, .even including the Native Minister.” A Broader Outlook. "I appeal to the Labour members to take a slightly broader outlook than they have been doing,” urged Mr C. A. Wilkinson (Independent, Egmont), speaking on the Finance Bill. Mr J. McCombs (Labour, Lyttelton) : "Ditto.” "The whole community is in trouble, and suffering severely,” said Mr Wilkinson, "but to simply champion the cause of a section of the community that is fairly well organised is not showing very good public spirit. I am sorry to say that. That may not be the Labour members’ outlook at all; they may be quite sincere, but it seems to me that they should look at the situation of the whole of the people and consider how many fanners are ir. trouble, and how many other people have not got a job at all.” Mr P. Fraser (Labour, Wellington Central): "Hear, hear.” The speaker said they should try and see the burden spread over the whole of the community. “I commend that,” he added, "without any malice, to the Labour members to consider." Labour voices: "We will give it serious consideration.’ ' “I can only assume,” remarked Mr D. G. Sullivan (Labour, Avon), a little later, "that the hon. member means by the term broader consideration that the Labour members should lend themselves to the utterly unjustifiable attack that is being made on one special section of the community. The objection we raise to the Government’s proposals is that they are singling out a specific class of people for specific taxation through the cuts, and included in that class are a number of people who are almost on the bread line, and who wall have to definitely suffer a shortage of the necessaries of life if the Bill is passed.” Attack on Professor. An attack on Professor Murphy was made in’the Legislative Council by the Hon. W. Earnshaw, who objected to a statement which had been made by the Professor that it was not the job of the Government to settle Industrial and economic problems. "Some years ago,” said Mr Earnshaw, "I had an opportunity of forming an opinion of the character of the Professor. He was delivering a lecture, and he referred to Disraeli as a mountebank and a charlatan. Fancy saying such a thing as that about a man who played such a great part in the destiny of the British Empire. And now he makes this statement about the duty of the State. I can’t imagine any man being such a born ass, as to make such a statement as that.” Insurance or Revolution.

"Notwithstanding the jokes made against the Labour Party of England in respect to their policy of unemployment insurance,” said Mr W. E. Parry (Labour, Auckland Central) in the House of Representatives. "I fancy I can see at the next election the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Snowden, standing with his back to the wall defying the Tories of England to interfere with that legislation. I am convinced the Tories will be afraid to move any amendment to that legislation, because they well know they have to have either an unemployment insurance scheme In England or revolution. There is no question about that. It must be one or the other. They have got to put up with it until something else is done.” A Changed Man. The observation of the Minister of Native Affairs that the Prime Minister was a different man when he came back from the Imperial Conference, caused Mr W. E. Barnard (Labour, Napier) to speculate as to the causes of the change. Mr Barnard said that the Minister’s observation was certainly intriguing. The Bill before the House afforded some evidence of the change in Mr Forbes. "I wonder if the Prime Minister will tell the House and the country what influenced him most in his travels abroad. I am sure New Zealand would like to know. Wq know that the Prime Minister met Mr Ramsay Macdonald, and also that he was a fellow voyager with Mr Scullin, Prime Minister of Australia, and we may be sure that as Minister of Finance he met Mr Snowden, the British Cnancellor. Did he discuss the Dominion’s plight with Mr Snowden? If so. I wonder what advice Mr Snowden gave him. Or did he meet Mr Norman, of the Bank of England? I am sure the people of New Zealand would like to know what caused the change of mind in the Prime Minister.”