Parliamentary

Bruce Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 2904, 9 August 1898, Page 5

Parliamentary

The Parliamentary correspondent of the ' News ' states Mr Brown is to ask the Minister of Justice whether, before making appointments to the Commission of the Peace, he will take steps to ascertain whether the appointees can read and write, and Mr M'Guire intends to ask whether it is true that a recently appointed Justice has been sentenced to one month 'a imprisonment in Nelson gaol for not contributing to the Hupport of his mother. Mr T. E. Taylor : " Hero is the Premier running the whole colony and nearly the whole universe for only £1000 a year." Mr Symeß : "He ought to have £10,000." Mr Taylor : c " Well I think he is one of the poorest paid men in the colony. Compite the position of the Premier with that of chairman of the Bank of New Zealand. We work the former to d< ath for £1000 a year and yet members propose to offer the Bame salary to another man for working four hours a week." The Minister of Lands is favorable to the introduction of a Fair Rent Bill, but as the House on a former occaßiou has refused to mhke it apply all round to tenants of private lands as well as to those of the Government he is indisposed to bring in a Bill this year. The Leader of the Opposition, who is a fctroog believer in the railway management being under non-political control, siys that travelling is slower and less comfortable ot» the lines of the colony than it was eight years ago. " The gentlemen we put into the Legislative Council are the oniy live members of it." The Minister of Lands on the Government calls. Mr Montgomery describes the Premier as the guileless fly who was enticed into the banking web by Mr John Murray. " I have been blamed for the appointment of Mr Barns, of Wangauui, but had I used my own judgment he would not have been appointed a valuer. In a weak moment I gave way to the requisition of twenty-eight people of Wanganui, and that is how ic happened." Thus the Minister of Lands on an incident that has landed him in some trouble. Mr A. Guinneaa on borrowing : "The Right Hon. the Premier will be left behind. He is going too slow, and he will not be advancing in the van of progress unlesa he gofs in for this bold and progressive policy that I have advocated." "At ths present time land values are as high as they are likely to be in New Zealand."— Mr R Thompson's opinion. " Something for nothing, and pay the money in many year's time." — Mr Taylor's idea of the Bushy Park purchase. " Members of acclimatisation societies are frequently very crotchety peisons with only one idea in their heads — that of breeding fish and wild animals as fast as possible." — The Hon. F. Arkwright's opinion. The Premier gives an example of colonial usury : In the report of the Commission which had been sitting at Home there was most interesting reading and the evils of u^ury were to be found in that report. It was not only the moneylenders that they required legislation to apply to. There were in this country a few unscrupulous members of the legal profession, whose charges were equally as bad as those of the usurers. He had in his mind a case where a Maori borrowed £1. He was charged 12s 6d for interpretation, £1 12s 6d other charges, and 5s for something else. That £1 co.st him £2 10s. Mr Crowther, M.H.R., speaking of a fellow member said that he had no knowledge of what a worldly sin it is to be poor and together with that to be outspoken and to acknowledge that you are poor.