HOUSE IN SESSION.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5445, 8 July 1929, Page 2

HOUSE IN SESSION.

MR. SAMUEL’S ACTIVITIES. QUESTIONS TC BE ASKED. Mr A. M. Samuel, M.P. for Thames electorate, intends asking the following questions in the House :— 1. Whether the Minister of Pensions will introduce legislation this session providing assistance for the wives, children, or dependants of totally incapacitated workers. Cases are constantly occurring of workers becoming totally disabled through sickness and other causes’, and in consequence their wives, children or dependants are left unprovided for.

2. If the Minister of Public Health will have a full investigation made of the conditions ad working hours of all nurses in hospitals, both public and private.

Letters have appeared in the public press to the effect that nurses work long and exhausting hours, performing difficult and dangerous duties without sufficient time off for recreation, and that as a consequence the health of these women is undermined. Of the Prime Minister Mr Samuel will ask :—

Will the Government, realising the important part primary producers play in the prosperity of the Dominion, consider the desirability of subsidising the freight on fertilisers and lime to those fanners who are dependent on waterways for the carriage of these necessary commodities ?

At present those farmers who are only served by this means of transport for the carriage of their fertilisers and lime, have to pay heavy rates for steamer and launch freight while those who are fortunate enough to be on the line of railway receive very substantial concessions by way of reduced rates.

Mr Samuel will question the Minister of Marine:— > As the recent seismic disturbance has evidently altered, the; bed of the ocean adjoining our coast-line, will the Minister have ah immediate survey made ’as a to shipping?

Mr Lewellyn, of Waimarie, writes to the newspapers that for a considerable distance in the vicinity of his property, the ocean bed has risen to a height of at least 100 ft. In addition to this large quantities of deep sea mussels have been washed ashore on the Whangamata bdach, which is no doubt due to a subterranean disturbance which may have also raised the bed of the ocean in that vicinity. Mr Samuel has asked the Minister of Railways :— “Is there any truth in the rumour that the Minister has been recommended by his departmental officers to place orders in Britain for shunting engines? “If so, does the Minister intend to carry out this recommendation ?j “If these engines are required,, and cannot be built by the Government workshops in time to meet the’? requirements of the Department, will the big engineering works at Thames be given an opportunity to tender for their construction?

“Is it a fact that heavy repair work to locomotives at the Petone workshops is much behind, and that a heavy array of units is assembled there awaiting attention? - “If this is so, does the Govermiient intend to allow these repairs to accumulate while numbers of skilled workmen at Thames, formerly employed at this class of work, are turned loose to swell the ranks of the unemployed?”