The Manawatu Herald. Tuesday, June 24th., 1913. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1113, 24 June 1913, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Tuesday, June 24th., 1913. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

At Palmerston yesterday a man named Purcil was fined 20s for resisting the police, and ordered to pay 7s 6d, damage to the constable’s uniform, and 5s for drunkenness. According to our Palmerston evening contemporary’s report of the arrest of this individual, and the resistance put up by a drunken companion, who it was alleged kicked the constable, Magistrate Poynton took too lenient a view of the affair. The police, in protecting society, and in the discharge of their duty, should receive the utmost protection from the Bench, and acts ot brutality against the limb of the law in this connection should be justly and severely discountenanced. A policeman’s lot is not a happy one, arid he is beggarly underpaid for the risks to life and limb he is daily called upon to take, and surely he is entitled to a little more consideration from the Bench than that meted out in the case under consideration.

Parliament opens on Thursday next and the first serious business will be the election of Speaker to fill the vacancy caused by the lamented death of Sir Arthur Guinness. The choice will fall either on Mr Rang, present Chairman of Committees, or the Hon. J. A. Millar. The position is the gift of the Ministry in power and we believe the choice will fall upon Mr Millar, who is now restored in health and whose long Parliamentary experience, backed by events since the retirement of Sir Joseph Ward, should influence the Ministry in

his favour. Some journals have tipped the member for the Hutt as the next Speaker, and while he possesses all the qualifications, we do not thiuk such promotion would meet with the approval of the House. The session will be a strenuous one. The Government has had time to get into its stride and its policy measures and recent administration will be subjected to keen criticism, but we believe that it will come through with a stronger hold upon the country than that which it now possesses.