WELLINGTON TOPICS

Hokitika Guardian, 29 October 1932, Page 6

WELLINGTON TOPICS

RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. BILL WITHDRAWN. (Special, Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, October 25. The Religious) Instruction in Public Shools Enabling Bill, which had been the standing dish in the menu of the Legislative Council for a fortnight was withdrawn by its. promoter, Sir James Allen,, at the week-end a nd set aside for production bn some more propitious The Right Hon. Sir Francis Bell, a master cf tactics, brought"about the withdrawal of the measure by movirfg that its title should be changed to the Instruction in Public Schools Act, and Sir James Allen, realising that further progress was hopeless announced that in the circumstances he would not proceed further with the measure. Tie let it be known, however, that had Sir Edwin Mitchelson not been detained in Auckland by illness lie would have cast his vote for the Bill and so given it a majority. That may have been so, but the other Branch cf the Legislature would have remained to be surmount ed.

THE SECOND CHAMBER. On Friday of this week the terms of ; the Hon. Sir Heaton Rhodes, the Hon L. M. Isitt and the Hon G. Witty, all Canterbury members of the Legislative Council, will cease, and they have been informed by those* in authority that their re-appointments, like those of a number of Councillors alreacly retired,' will not he consider .id until after the conclusion of the present session cf Parliament. At the beginning of the first session of the present Parliament, the twenty-fourth, its roll stood at thirty-five members and at the end of the current week will have diminished to twenty-two, the smallest number since 1861 when the Council numbered twenty-one, and the House of Representatives fifty-six. There : is naturally a good deal of speculation here as to whom the eight or nine successful aspirants to the nominated chamber will be, but for. the present it is no more than a street and dub; speculation. 1

THE PROVINCE. There have been complaints in the lobbies lately, to the. effect that the South Island has had a much larger measure of representation in the Legislative Council than has the North Island. This would be justified if , representation in the nominated Chamber rested on the'same basis as it does in the elected chamber. But this is not the case. The constituency of the nominated chamber is the whole -Dominion. But even on a narrower basis the representation of the Legislative Council, when Sir Heaton Rhodes, the Hon. L. M. Isitt and the Hon. George Witty, all South Island representatives, have retired, v there will not he very, much to quarrel about in the distribution of the memhtership of the second chamber. Of the twenty-two Legislative Councillors remaining in office on Saturday next, eleven wilLbo from the North Island and eleven from the South.

EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO. While referring to this question of representation it may not he inopportune to ask what has become of the Proportional Representation Bill, dealing wU|h th'e Legislative Council, which Mr Massey inspired during the general election of 1911 and which Sir Francis Bell jn co-operation with liis chief passed through both branches of the Legislature threo years later. One remembers that when the Reform Government and the Liberal-Labour Government coalesced for the purpose of concentrating the whole strength of the Dominion upon the needs of the British Empire, Mr Massey agreed to hold over the measure until the more pressing demands <ff the country were secure. But when the war was over, and the work of rehabilitating was : in hand, surely it was the duty cf the dominant party,, if not of all three parties, to see that the legislation placed on the Statute, Book . at the beginning of the was either returned to its legitimate position'd' consigned to the waste paper basket.