SHORTER HOURS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 659, 10 May 1929, Page 11

SHORTER HOURS

DAYLIGHT SAVING IN PARLIAMENT (From Our Resident Reporter) WELLINGTON, Today. Although the original suggestion of the Prime Minister the Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph Ward, that sittings of Parliament during the coming session should be wholly daylight, has not been adopted by the Select Committee set up duiring the short session, important modifications of the present hours probably will be recommended to the Houise. The Prime Minister brought forward a schedule of hours providing that the Mouse sit from 3 0.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. from Tuesday to Friday, with intervals for lunch. The recommendation of the committee. it is stated, will be that the hours should be from 2.30 p.m., the present meeting hour, to 5.30, and 7.30 to 10.30, except on Fridays, when most members are anxious to get home for the week-end. On Fridays the House will assemble at 10.30 and rise at 5.30. Committee work, which is done mostly in the mornings, will not be interfered with in the new programme. The all-night debate looks like becoming a thing of the past, for most members of the House are in favour of a curtailment of the hours of sitting - . It is thought in some quarters that the shortened hours may mean a lengthening of the session. Another change that may be sugested by the Select Committee is that the speeches in the Address-in-Reply debate should be limited to half an hour instead of the hour which has been allotted in the past.