PARLIAMENT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 703, 30 December 1909, Page 3

PARLIAMENT.

The House met at 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday. Mr Davey, as Chairman of the Public Petitions Committee, reported on the petition of Barton, an ex-motorman of the Wellington City Council, who received lifelong injuries as the result of the collision of a tram car, driven by him, with a wagon driven by State Coal Depot employees. Mr Davey read the whole evidence of Barton and the representative of the South British Insurance Company. The South British Insurance Company gave Barton .£l5O a? ex-gratia payment, on signing a document agreeing to refund the money iu the event of succeeding in his claim against the Government. The Committee, after reviewing the evidence, had come to the conclusion that Barton had received lifelong injuries, and that the Crown should award him £3s° compensation, but that the sum of I £l5O received by Barton from the South British Insurance Company, should not be paid back out of this amount. The motion that the report be referred to the Government for favorable consideration, and the evidence be printed, was agreed to. On the motion to go into Committee of Supply Mr Massey then brought up the question of the reinstatement of the vote of ,£4o° for Mr W. P. Reeves as Financial Adviser iu London, which was placed on the Supplementary Estimates and which gave rise to the stonewall before Christmas. He claimed that it was not competent to deal again during the session with the question. A long discussion on the points of order raised by Mr Massey as to the competence of the House to reinstate a vote already'rejected ensued, and when the House ultimately went into Committee Mr Massey raised the questions(l) Whether the item under consideration, having been struck out of the General Estimates, could be reinstated in the General Estimates without these being recommitted, and (2) whether the said item comes under the scope of the items that may be placed in the Supplementary Estimates. The chairman (Mr .Wilford) ruled on the first point, that while Mr Massey was right in regard to committals the procedure of the Premier was authorised by May as being an occasion for fresh expenditure. In regard to the second point, the Chairman ruled that the appropriation must be placed on the estimates, not being a grant made by statute. Progress was reported to secure the Speaker’s ruling, which confirmed that of the Chairman.

The discussion on the £4OO vote was then resumed iu Committee, at the stage at which it had been left on Christmas Eye, when five resolutions for reduction beginning at £399 and ending at £395 had been rejected. Messrs Russell, Poole and Clarke, who voted against the ,£4OO on Friday, announced, their intention to now vote for it, as they had voted' originally under misapprehension. The stonewall was continued until 7.45 a.m., when the House adjourned until 2.40 p.m.