WOMEN OCCUPY GALLERIES

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVIII, Issue 23258, 20 July 1945, Page 4

WOMEN OCCUPY GALLERIES

Remarkable Scene In House Supper With Members (F.0.P.R.) WELLINGTON, July 19. The Speakers and the public galleries of the House to-night were invgded by women, all but a handful of them being delegates to the conference of the Women’s Division of the Farmers’ Union being held in Wellington. The scene was a remarkable one. Save for a few orderlies and members of the Legislative Council in the small section reserved for them, there was not a male in the upstairs galleries. Even well-known male habitues of the public gallery were unable to look down at members from their customary seats, but instead they looked at members from the distinguished visitors’ gallery on the floor of the House at the rear of the Chamber. The W.D.F.U. delegates attended at I the invitation of the Opposition. There were between 200 and 300 of them. Their very presence in such large number was impressive, but the scene was even more so when they stood to join with members on the floor of the House at 9 o’clock to observe the period of silent prayer. The Address-in-Reply Debate had been in season for some time, and such a debate always offers possibilities of something being introduced a bit out of the ordinary, but there was no Address-in-Reply Debate to-night. It collapsed most unexpectedly during the afternoon sitting, when there were no contributions from Opposition members. Instead of the Address-in-Reply Debate the fare offered was first a discussion as to whether the second reading debate on the Finance Bill, which had been introduced shortly before the tea adjournment, should be taken that night, followed by a long clause by clause explanation of the Bill by the Minister of Finance —winch took almost an hour and a half—and then some discussion on sections of the I Bill in which Opposition members took | part. 1 The W.D.F.U. delegate stayed on i until after the Acting-Leader of the j Opposition <Mr W. J. Polson) had I spoken, and they then had supper with I members of the Opposition—or as j many of the Opposition as were able ' to leave the House —in the social hall.