PARLIAMENT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8490, 19 July 1907, Page 5

PARLIAMENT.

| (Abridged from Press Association Report.) LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL. WELLINGTON, July 18. The Legislative Council met at 2.30 p.m., and adjourned for the presentation of the Address-in-Reply to the Governor. Upon resuming the Council immediately adjourned until Friday week. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. The House met at 2.30 o'clock. ACCOUNTANTS' BILL. Mr A. L. D. Fraser, in moving the second reading of the Accountants' Bill, said that lengthy as the j Bill was its object could be explained ! in a few words. It was that the accountants and actuaries of the colony should be registered, and that the 500 or 600 accountants and actuaries in the colony should be embodied into one solid body. Mr T. M. Wilford agreed that the Bill was necessary, and that these men should be given a proper satus. Referring to the penal clause he urged that it should be modified so as to prevent the harshness which it would bear upon certain persons earning a livelihood as accountants. Mr J. G. W. Aitken criticised the machinery clauses, and expressed the opinon that the door was opened too wide for safety. On the other j hand he objected to the clause pro- | viding that no one should be permitted f o audit accounts of companies unless he was a public accountant, as it would be found embarrassing in country districts, where there were no public accountants. He approved of the principle of the Bill, but as framed it would be unworkable. The second reading was agreed to on the voices. The House resumed at 7.30 o'clock. The Farriers' Bill was continued in Committee, and reported with verbal amendments. PURE FOOD BILL.

The Pure Food Bill was further considered in Committee. Commencing at clause 14, which provides that reliance on a written warranty is a good defe:.: j U: the sale of goods, Mr Aitken pointed out that this was right enough as far as it went but it did not meet the case of a retailer who, after putting his goods on a shelf could not say afterwards which of the goods there were warranted. The Minister said that the same remarks had been made when a similar provision was before the Victorian Parliament, but had not been verified in practice. Unless there was some such provision they might just as well say they did not want a Pure Food Bill. Sub-section 2 of the clause ("no warranty shall be any defence unless given in New Zealand by or on behalf of a resident or incorporated company carrying-on business then") was, on the motion of the Hon. G. Fowlds, struck out and the following substitued:—"No warranty or other written statement given or made by a person resident outside New Zealand shail be any defence under this section unless the defendant proves that he has taken reasonable steps to ascertain and in believed in the truth of the matters forth in such warranty or statement." The clause as amended was agreed to. Clause 15 was. passed unamended.