PARLIAMENTARY GOSSIP.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 231, 27 September 1905, Page 2

PARLIAMENTARY GOSSIP.

(By Telagraph.—Parliamentary Reporter., WELLINGTON, this day. NO FOUNDRY FOR NEWMARKET. The- Government hn? no intention ot establishing a foundry at the New market railway workshops. THE POTATO FAMINE. No alteration will be made to the tariff to remove the duty from potatoes, since the Government considers that the inconvenience caused by the high prices will be only temporary. THE CONSOLIDATED ESTIMATES. The Consolidated Estimates will be completed to-night. The Premier leaves for Dunedin tomorrow to open the .>t. Helen's Hospital. The Mephan Ferguson Patent Lockingbar Steel Pipe Co., Ltd., of New Zealand, who are the contractors ijt thf supply of pipes for the Waitakete! water se erne. have secured a site at New Lynn for their works, anj will be calling for tenders shortly for the erect ion of extensive buildings. Mr Arthur Rosser, secretary of Trades and Labour Council, recently foiwarded to Wellington his Council's coraplaint hat the absence of an iron foundry at the Xe-wmarkc-l railway workshops nectSeatatcd the making cf castings elsewhere. Mr Kosser has since received a reply from Mr Frank La wry, M.H.R, stilting that he. had placed a question on the Order Paper relative :o : he ma - tc-r. A reply from Mr Alf. Kidd promised cordial c-o-operalion with Mr Lawry in the matter. The Devonport Council decided last night that for the future the disfiguring of tree guards with painted advertisements should be discouraged by the prosecution of the offenders. A former New Zealand colonist, writing from London to a friend in Canterbury, says: """he New Zealand Court at the Colonial Exhibition at the Crystal Palace has. I think, been a great sue cess. It is the best place for such an exhibition, as people not only from London, but also from the provinces, come there. Quite a million people have passed through the Palace since the exhibition opened. I suppose that 1000 people see our exhibits there to every 10 that go to our court at the Imperial Institute."

Mr. Balfour has a decided aversion to n.".v -boots, but it chanced that, after being driven by necessity to the purchase of a pair, he went on a long journey, and stayed the night at an-hotel. The next morning he was unable to identify his boots from a long row. Time and trains wait for no man, not even the Prime Minister, and, in desperation, he put on the only pair that fitted him, and rushed from the hotel, leaving a sovereign with the waiter to give the indignant owner of the boots when he called for his property. The owner never did call for them. Mr. Balfour had put on his own pair.