HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume L, Issue 12145, 3 September 1908, Page 5

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

WELLINGTON, September 2. The House met at 2.30 p.m. REPLIES TO QUESTIONS. Replying to questions, 'Minister/* stated:— • . ■ That it seemed quite unnecessary to set up Special Appeal Boards for such departments of the Public Service as do not possess them, as the Classification Board fulfilled the functions of such Boards. That the question of altering the law so that Water Supply Boards shall share in subsidies on rates collected on the same basis as County Councils will be considered by the Government dur-. ing the recess. That arrangements would be made for automatic voting machines to be tested at some local election. ' ■' -- That the final selection of a design for the coat-of-arms for the Dominion would be made within the next two months. That the officers of the Labour Department were paying attention to the question of the sale of tobacco after 8 p.m. by Chinese shopkeepers. ■•• ' That an amendment in the Noxious Weeds Bill will be brought down if time permitted. ' STATEMENT BY THE PREMIER. The Premier, replying to remarks subsequently made by members said that the .task of preparing the railway classification list had been enormously complicated, and it was untrue, and unfair to assert that tho Government had been subjected to pressure in its pre- J paration. The Premier said he noticed that m one breath the Opposition complained that the Government was always swelling the Estimates, and in the next complained that enough" was not paid to the members of the public service ' RegardingVrail way . concession, he declared that what/the Government had • done already should have excited applause from the whole community. It was a bad sign for the future government of the Dominion that on the eve of a general election members were asking for all sorts of further concessions, and it wa sa bad sign that the constituents of members, whoever they be^shoukL encourage .that sort of thing Ihe House, adjourned at 5.30 p.m. ••.■■■ lhe House: resumed at 7.30^ r The Premier moved the second reading of the Second Ballot Bill, designed to prevent any candidate at a Parliamentary election being returned by a minority, of the total number of votes recorded^ by providing that a second ballot between the candidates obtaining the first and second places at the first ballot m cases where neither of such candidates at such ballot shall have polled an absolute majority of the rotes recorded. . ■

+J?? d? bat£ wa* continuing when the telegraph office closed.