PARLIAMENT.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXX, Issue 48, 13 October 1914, Page 7

PARLIAMENT.

SEAMEN’S VOTES. [Per, Press Association,] Wellington, October 12. In the House of Representatives to-night, Hon. F. M. B. Fisher moved the- second reading of the Legislative Bill, No. 2, which he described .is mainly a machinery measure. The principal clause (clause 7) makes a radical change in the recording of seamen’s votes by compelling them to vote in the electorate in which they are domiciled, or, if they have ao domicile on shore, in the electorate in which the Custom-house is sitjiatjd at the port at which their vessel is calling on the day of the election. Mr G. W. Russell criticised the Bill. He said it was well known that the seamen wanted to wipe the Minister for Marine out of the polices of this Dominion, and the object >f the Bill was to transfer the whole of the seamen’s votes from Wellington Central to Wellington North. The Bill, he said, was to “save the bacon” of the Minister for Marine. It was an electoral fake. Other Opposition speakers referred to the Hon. Fisher’s generosity in handing all the seamen’s votes to the Minister for Justice. Messrs Rhodes and Loo supported the Bill, and the Minister, replying, disclaimed any intention such as had been attributed to him. He said it was wrong that seamen should be allowed to concentrate their votes in any one electorate. The second reading was carried.