The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. MONDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1897. THE PRANKS OF PARLIAMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVIII, Issue 289, 13 December 1897, Page 4

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1897. THE PRANKS OF PARLIAMENT.

For the eauM that lutiu __Hist.i_i.ee, Por tha TCTons that needa r____st-_a_a, For the future in the dlatinoe, And tho good that we oon do.

We think it will be generally admitted by electors of all shades of political opinion that the spectacle presented by Parliament during- the present session is the reverse of edifying. Two months, or nearly ten weeks of the session have been mostly wasted in profitless and unseemly squabbles, obstructive tactics on the one side and pathetic remonstrance.*-* on the other, and now in the' last fortnight of the session a few of the most important measures are to be rushed' through a wearied and indifferent House, with the result that the Statute Book will probably be encumbered with mere scamped, ill-digested, and puzzling laws, which will provide fat fees for the lawyers and ambiguous problems for the judges. The House has frequently been sitting far into the morning, .and now the Premier has a motion on the Order Paper which is likely to be carried in favour of meeting in the forenoon of the remaining sitting days before Christmas! With this and the all-night sittings the physical endurance of members will be severely strained, if some do not collapse altogether, and assuredly satisfactory legislation cannot be carried out under such conditions. .

At twenty minutes to five o'clock on Saturday morning, after a sitting lasting all night, the Land for Settlement Act Amendment Bill passed its final stage, having been read a second time, committed,, and read a third time at a single sitting of the House. This bill authorises the Government to spend an additional £2:50,000 a year, or £500,000 in any one of the ensuing three years upon the purchase of private estates for settlement. Now, while we agree entirely with the Government policy of breaking up big estates by giving the owners, reasonable compensation, we decidedly dissent from the large powers which are conferred upon the Land Purchase Board under this measure. A quarter of a million .sterling is the utmost limit to which the Board and Government should be allowed to go without express Parliamentary sanction and criticism. There are very large areas of Crown lands in the North Island with respect ,• to the settlement of which the Government have not shown the diligence we had'a,-right to expect, and although we approve generally of the efforts of. the Minister of Lands to mitigate the evils of land monopoly in the South Island, we think he may very well proceed at a little slower, pace in his land purchases and turn his attention to the settlement of the land in the Waikato and other parts of the North Island which the Government already own. Successful as the purchase of the Cheviot Estate has been, experience in cutting up and disposing of it has shown that a long time is occupied by the necessary preparations ; and the Government cannot reasonably hope to settle beneficially in a year the amount of land they are now asking power to buy. Moreover, a system of irresponsibility with regard to finance is being established ' which we can only regard as imperilling the proper control of Parliament over ihe public purse and dangerous to the purity of the administration.

For. the ..slow progress .made .with business during the session, aud the need that has now arisen to push measures which they desire to pass

throng-h fby forced sittings, the Government are not to blame, although this state of things is none the less to be deplored. The large majorities recorded on the Ministerial side on Saturday morning on the Land, for Settlement Bill showed cleaidy enough that the obstruction of business has come- from the direct Opposition—that the Government has in reality still a good working majority who are prepared to back them whenever called upon. That the minority could succeed in blocking business for nearly two months and thwarting the majority argues some defect in the Parliamentary Standing Orders and rules ? of debate, or an extraordinary skill in manipulating the forms of the House. Even if such obstruction could be justified on the plea that it was a formal protest against the high-handed proceedings of the Government, which is not the case, or the Jasuitieal plea of doing evil that good may come, it cannot be said that the success has been commensurate with the woful waste of time and effort. The undeniable factis that this plea put forward by the Opposition is a mere pretence. The obstruction was asystem of party tactics deliberately planned in order to furnish the Opposition with a political cry during the recess that the Government has been incapable of carrying on the business of the country. The only answer which the Government could make to such a mode of attack was the one they have given by demonstrating that they are still entitled to the places they bold on the Ministerial benches, as possessing the confidence of a parliamentary majority—prepared to support the essential measures of the Government pol-