"NOT A TALKING SHOP"

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 304, 17 September 1920, Page 8

"NOT A TALKING SHOP"

BRIEF SITTINGS OF THE UPPER ■ HOUSE. The tendency of many people to ren ark, often uncompliinentarily, upon the shortness of tho Legislative Council sittings, was mentioned yesterday by the Hon. W. H. Triggs during a .lebate in the Upper House. I ■» "It is not necessary for members of tho Council to fill countless pages of Hansard with electioneering talk," said the lion, gentleman, who happened to be contending that a nominated Council was preferable to nn oleclcd one. "I am not sure," ho continued, "whether in our desire to be. a strictly business house and not a talking shop, we do not err a little in the other direction. Quito recently we passed an important amendment in the Marriages Act. That amendment represented days spent in the taking of evidence and ih very careful consideration. Some of the ' best, legal brains wero employed in tho drafting of that amendment, but when it came before tho Council wo wero all satisfied as to the right thing to do, and it passed in a few seconds without anything being mid about it. In view of what has lwen said since, I am not sure whether a mistake was not made on that occasion— (Membars: Hear, hear)—and whether, if only for the information of the public, it would not have been better if 6ome debate had taken place im regard to that question."