STUCK TO THEIR GUNS

Thames Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 18487, 31 October 1917, Page 2

STUCK TO THEIR GUNS

It mil bet seen from, our Parliamentary report that after three conference sbstweem tiho two Houses of Parliament, the Legislative Council has declined to give way on the question, of axemptiug clergy and teachers from service. The Bill has now been dropped for the aiewsion. The exemption of teachers was really proposed in order that the Marist Brothers should not be compelled to serve, and at was this subterfuge which wrecked the Bill. Had a straight out proposal been made to exempt this teaching order it might have had a better chance, of being carried. But to smuggle it in as part of a resolution to exempt all teachers, when bo many of the teaching profession were already at the front, was a proposition: that, an overwhelming majority of the Legislative Council resolutely opposed. This is the first time for many years thai! the Legislative Council has assierted itself against the popular Chamber. We shall p<robably hear a great deal about the people's will being thwarted, and the representative Chamber being 1 deified, but this ie

only so much .hot air. Solongi as we have a bi-cameral systetm of J*arliamstit, so long will there he occasions when the determined will of one Houaie clashes with that of the other*. In Australia they manage such thing's better. When conferences between the Federal Houses prove 1 abortive, there is a regulation under which both Houses may sttt together and decide the disputed" point. There is also power in the constitution to dissolve both Housete. These provisions appear to be neleded here to enable a decision to be reached on the rare owasions when deadlock* occur betoween.'tti» Chan> ( beifi.