"BLOWN OUT."

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14839, 3 December 1913, Page 13

"BLOWN OUT."

A FUTILE PROPOSAL

(special to "the press.")

"WELLINGTON, December 2,

It did not take tho House of Representatives much more than forty-five seconds this evening to decide that three pages of amendments (comprising about 1600 words) proposed by Mr G. W. Russell for insertion in the Counties Act Amendment Bill were not wanted. That decision, of course, made the whelo printing of the amendments, mero waste. When Mr Russell moyod his amendment, he said that it lifted bodily from the Municipal Corporations Act those provisions which, enabled such _ bodies to engage in supplying electricity or gas to residente, and suggested 1 that they should be inserted in this Counties Bill to enable counties.to do the same. He had been asked to do so, he said, by tho Waiinairi County .Council, which, being near Christchurch, desired to be able to secure either electricity or gas from that city. County Councils near other cities, he said, might 'also like to enjoy the same privileges.

3tr Davey pointed out that clause 25 in the Counties Bill (just dealt with) met tho situation; This clause gavo power to a County Council to erect a line for the transmission of electricity and to supply it to the inhabitants of tho county. . ■ The Minister fn charge of tho Bill "(the Hon. A. L. Hordman) eaidthat ho could not accept the amendments, which wore accordingly promptly thrown out on the voices.