WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taihape Daily Times, 25 October 1917, Page 5

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

delayed legislation. fa awaiting it’s chance. (Special Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, October 24. Today the Prime Minister is not so confident as be was on Monday, of bringing tbe session to an end early next week. Tbe passage of tbe Pensions Bill and tbe acceptance of tbe compromise on tbe Liquor Bill have not cleared all contentious matter out of tbe way. It is suspected, indeed, that tbe .Government has held back two or three troublesome measures in tbe hope that criticism will be less intense and stanching \when members are. eager get to their homes than it would have been when time was merely tbe plaything. of their leisured hours. Tbe Expeditionary Forces Amendment Bill an delicate clause dealing with tbe exception~of clergy from military service. tbe Social Hygiene Bill exploits one of the njost perilous of legislative grounds, tbe War Kegulation Bill is the last word in autocratic rule and the Washing-up Bill attempts more than any other measure of the kind ever was accomplished. The appearance of these Bills high up the Order Paper has provoked a fueling of expectant unrest in the House and Mr. Massey, reading the ►' Signs of the hour, has extended his prophecy concerning the prorogation by a couple of days. SIX O’CLOCK CLOSING. ' The inevitable compromise between the two Houses on the question of six o’clock closing has ben effected. The ordinary sale of liquor is to cease at the hour originally prescribed but people taking “a substantial meal oa hotel or club premises between 6 and 8 .m. may have drink with their food A small minority in the Council strongly resisted this concession to the licensed victualler, protesting that it would mean unlimited .drinking during the two additional hours, but the prohibitionists and their friends in both chambers, believing that further opposition would imperil the Bill and all it implied, very sensibly concluded it would be better to accept a large half loaf than to go without bread altogether. It is difficult to estimate the precise effect of -the .compromise, but the general -.opinion of people acquainted c with the, ramifications of the liquor trade is.<ljhat the right of serv-‘ ing liquor with* meals up to 8 p.m. will not .return to the publican more than 5 per cent, of the revenue he will lose through early closing. SOCIAL HYGIENE.,

Minister of Public Health did all the members of the House he met in conference yesterday well disposed towards his Social Hygiene Bill. Most of them had received communications from more or,less representative bodies in their constituencies strongly protesting against both the principles and the details of the measure and naturally they were influenced to some extent by those demonstrations of voting strength. But the Hon. G. W. Russell made the need for drastic action so plain that not a single member was bold enough to say nothing should be done for the protection of the health of the community and the preservation of the virility of the nation. The plea was for palliatives, for something less thorough and effective than the Minister was advocating and probably several useful clauses in the Bill will have to be abandoned in order to meet this plea. But, if Parliament refuses to retain the main provisions of his scheme, Mr Russell will withdraw the measure altogether and do the best he can with the existing legislation, PENSION'S AND ALLOWANCES. Although the great majority of the members of the House who attended the National Caucus came away from that historic conference pledged to support the Government in its refusal to further concessions by way of pensions and allowances to the members of the Second Division, many of them were in the position of the proverbial person convinced against his will. They were of the same opinion still. Now several of them in view of the announcement that a war bonus is again to be paid to civil servants are drawing Comparisons between the man with a comfortable billet in some public department receiving £5 a week and a war bonus and the man in the trenches getting £1 15s a week and no war bonus. They urge, and on the face of it with a great deal of reason, that if the Government has £400,000 to spare from its own immediate requirements the money would be much better employed in piaking adequate provision for the dependents of men at the front than in lightening the loss grievous burdens of men already in the enjoyment of a living wage.