Parliament.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 119, 13 October 1914, Page 8

Parliament.

SEAMEN'S VOTES. By Telegraph.—Per Press Association. Wellington, Lasl) Night. In the House of Representatives tonight, Hon. F. M. B. Fisher moved the second reading of the Legislature Bill, No, 2, which he described as main'.y 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 havo no domicile on shore, in the electorate in which the Custom-houso is situated at tho port at which their vessel is calling on the day of the election.

Air C. W. Russell criticised tho Bill. ! He said it was well known that tho seaI men wanted to wipe the Minister for Marine out of the politics of this Dominion, and the object of 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 Lee 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 bo allowed to concentrate their votes in any one electorate.

Tho second reading was carried.