PARLIAMENT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9673, 11 December 1909, Page 5

PARLIAMENT.

i LEGISLA TIVE COUNCIL. By Association* WELLINGTON, December 10. In the Legislative Council, this afternoon, the Designation of Districts Bill was passed. The Land for Settlement Finance Bill was put through the committee stage. The Attorney-General moved the second reading of the Death Duties Bill. He explained its provisions at considerable length, and maintained that the measure was in harmony with the modern spirit of this and every other progressive country.

The Hon. S. T. Gtorge (Auckland) said that he thought the Bill was in the right direction, and that those people in New Zealand who had made their money in this country and had been assisted to do so by the opera* tions of the State, should pay to the State a proportion of what they had gained, but this Bill applied to every part of the world,, clause 3 would read so, though that might not be its' intention. He went onfto criticise various details of the measure. The Hon. J. A. Loughnan (Wellington) having also spoken to the Bill, the debate was adjourned, <.nd th Council adjourned. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. rhe House in the afternoon went into Committee of gSupply on the vote for working railways (£2;143, 500). Mr Massey asked what was to be done in regard to the report of the Commission on the Addington Workshops. Mr T. E. Taylor™ (Christchurch North) asked whether casual railway hands who complied with all the necessary conditions would be included in the permanent staff. The Hon. J. Millar said that it would be necessary to decrease the permanent staff, and it would be an injustice to that staff to take on casual hands. Mr F. E. Baume (Auckland East) moved a reduction of £1 in the item £1,250 for general manager as an indication that an independent tribunal should enquire into the hours of labour and rate ot wages in the service.

Mr J. P. Luke (Wellington Suburbs) advocated the placing of railway servants under the Arbitration Act. * The Hon. J. Millar said that the men had a chance to come under the Arbitration Act, and he was prepared to give it to them again on condition that they were put on a level with other men earning similar wages, and that the whole of the men come under the provisions of the Act. The debate was interrupted by the dinner adjournment. The debate on the railway vote on the Estimates was resumed in the evening. Replying to Mr Taylor, the Hon. J. Millar said that about 350 men were affected by the non-fulfilment of Mr Hall Jones' promise to place casuals who had beenv five years in the service on the permanent staff, but 250 of them had now been retrenched. As for bringing the men under the scope of the Arbitration Act they by a large majority vetoed it.