PREMIER AND PARLIAMENT.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 1 November 1901, Page 3

PREMIER AND PARLIAMENT.

Threatened Defiance of Both Chambers.

Conciliation Boards’ Debate.

[OUB PARLIAMENTARY REPORTER.]

Wellington, This Day,

Considerable comment has been occasioned in the lobbies as an outcome of the Premier’s declaration during the committee stage of the State Coal Mines’ Bill, that he was going to stand by the Conciliation Boards and the Conciliation law, and to give the country an opportunity of considering the matter of Mr Willis’s new clause, which allows either party to an industrial dispute to go by the Boards and appeal direct to the Arbitration Court before so important a departure was made.

Members stand aghast at the idea of Mr Seddon attempting to set at defiance the expressed will of both branches of the Legislature. The Council has practically passed the Bill in the form in which it left the elective chamber, so that a conference would not help the Premier to hang up the measure.

If there is any attempt to withhold it from the Governor’s assent ructions may bo looked for, for some of those who most severely condemn the Premier’s threat are staunch ministerialists, who talk of open revolt if any trickery is resorted to. I am inclined to think that the threat will prove nothing serious, and that the bill will’ find its way on to the statute book unpalatable as it is to the head of the Government.