The Manawatu Herald. Thursday, June 25, 1914. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1263, 25 June 1914, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Thursday, June 25, 1914. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

The last session of the present Parliament opened to-day, with the usual ceremonial. The Governor’s speech was delivered to both Houses. Judging by the programme set out in the speech from the throne, the session promises to be a strenuous one and there will be plenty of fireworks and electioneering oratory. The most important measures to be dealt with will be: Legislative Council Reform, Education. —Increase of salaries and stalling. Public Works. Taking away from the Government any possibility of patronage in regard to the allocation of money for expenditure on public works. Licensing. —A proposal to reduce from 60 to 55 per cent, the majority required to carry National Prohibition. Bible in Schools.—Proposal for taking a referendum on this muchdebated subject. Alien Immigration—especially Hindus. Electoral Reform.—Grouping of the city electorates, with possibilities of a new system and proportional representation. Railway Loans. —Chiefly for the purpose of raising a loan for the construction of, new railway stations at the centres and railway buildings generally. The above is only a tithe of the business that will come before Parliament, because it has already to be remembered that for the first ten weeks of the session local Bills and private members' Bills have tight of way on two days of the week. There will be some brisk exchanges between patties on points of detail on Supply Bill, which will be introduced in the House on Friday, and passed before the House adjourns for the day. Sir Joseph Ward informed a Post reporter

Yesterday that the Opposition has no intention ot obstructing business. “It must, however, be borne in mind," he added, “that the Government is proposing such a huge programme that it appears almost impossible to carry it out during the last session ot Parliament. Many of the measures to be brought forward will require and demand very careful consideration, and the Opposition will carry cut its duties in that respect.” There are four points on which speculation is centred— Legislative Council appointments, electoral reform, licensing, and' Bible in schools. The Legislative Council Bill is to be practically the same as that brought down last year, with the possible exception that the new appointees will be given a briefer term of office than their predecessors, thus enabling the elective system to be brought fully into operation more quickly than would be the case if the new members were appointed for the full term ot seven years. The general idea in regard to electoral reform is that the Government will split on the rock of divided opinion, and that the next elections will take place, city and country, on the “first past the post wins” principle. The Licensing Bill will be introduced by the Prime Minister, who will announce it as a non-party measure. The main question to be decided is : What amount ol time can the Government afford to devote to the consideration ot the subject ? The same remarks apply to the Bible-in-Schools Referendum Bill. The two sides are so strongly opposed that the possibility of an early vote on the subject is very remote. The work of the session will be keenly followed by electors throughout the Dominion in view of the general elections.

Thk Federation of Labour and its supporters are growing increasingly anxious about the farmers’ vote at the coming general elections, says the Dominion. Our contemporary continues: “ A few short months ago it did not suit the convenience of the Red Federation that the country’s produce should go to London. The farmers thereupon said to themselves : ‘Very well, if the Federationists want a holiday we will go down to the ports and load the goods ourselves.’ This was a perfectly reasonable proposition, but we all know what happened, and how the farmers who came to town were referred to as ‘ the scum ot the country,’ ‘ filthy specials,’ and by- various other choice epithets, supplemented by brickbats, lumps of iron, and other missiles. Now Mr Robertson, M.P., asks the public to take leave of its senses and believe that this was all a dream. In an address to his constituents at Otaki last week, the local paper reports him as saying : “The Government had tried to create the impression that the strikers wished to injure the farmers. Why, they (the strikers) had offered, through the speaker, to load the tarmers’

produce during the strike, Mr Maun: Never heard of it! Mr Robertson : No, the Government took good care of that; but that was a fact. Mr Robertson must have a very peculiar idea of the intelligence of the electors of Otakj.”