INTOLERABLE.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 909, 31 August 1910, Page 6

INTOLERABLE.

DEPUTATIONS AT FIVE MINUTES' notice. . . In the future deputations will not ba received by Ministers during . the 669sion except on Saturday mornings and Mondays. Referring to the matter .in . ' the House yesterday, the Prime Minister - - stated that the custom had grown up for, deputations' from various parts . of- the. Dominion to request Ministers to receive . them at very short notice, even during--' the sitting hours of'• Parliament. -' Not > , .infrequently when' a Minister. was required "to uo present a', a sitting of- a . . committee in the mornings or to be in (lis place in the House m the afternoons or evenings, he had to meet,a deputalion. As a result of consideration on ,' the. point,'it had beendecidednot to -. receive any deputations -or -interviewers during the sittings of Parliament. In nine out of.ten instances the repr.esentalions could be just as well made Dy mem-"' ", hers or by correspondence., Apparently , - it had become an understood fact that : x deputations could be-heard at five minutes' notice. In consequence ot so deputations and* the hours at which they ■, <,ame'on, Ministers had been unable, to . get through their work during", the jit- - ■ dinary hours;- .Whenever members .-wwli- - ed to introduce deputations. Ministers would do all in their power to facilitate . matters..' ' The,' proposed .alteration was-.- . very necessary, as the - position liad DO- . .. come intolerable.