The Press.

Press, Volume XXIII, Issue 3036, 15 May 1875, Page 2

The Press.

SATURDAY, MAY 15, 1875,

The debate in tbe Provincial Council, which terminated on Thursday evening, was out of order and irregular from beginning to end. It was a discussion of the financial statement. But it took place after the financial statement had been disposed of. on an entirely different motion, and in continuation of the statement of the Secretary for Public Works. The financial statement was delivered on Wednesday, May sth. By a blunder in Parliamentary practice, customary somehow in the Provincial Council, it was delivered in the Council instead of, as it should have been, in Committee of Supply. When Mr Maskell eat down a considerable debate arose on the motion that the Speaker do now leave the chair. Ultimately the House went into Committee, and, after more debate, the first item of the estimates was passed. Progress was then reported. On Tuesday, May 11th, on a motion for going into Committee of Supply, Mr Peacock made his public works statement. A discussion followed, in which Mr Montgomery and Dγ Turnbull took part; and at last, on the motion of Sir C. Wilson, the debate was adjourned. On Wednesday and Thursday the adjourned debate was continued. Mr Montgomery and Dγ Turnbull, who had spoken on the previous evening, both spoke again ; and the final reply from the Treasury Bench was made, not by the Secretary for Public Works, who began the discussion, but by the Provincial Treasurer. The Council then went into Committee, and resumed the J estimates at the point where it had left them on the previous Wednesday week. How it came that the Speaker allowed this free-and-easy style of conducting business we cannot say. He seems to have been napping. The discussion during the last two evenings, though occasionally not without animation, was on the whole flat and unprofitable. It lacked spirit, and was kept throughout on a low uninteresting level. Members seemed to speak, not so much because they had anything particular to say, as because, after a financial statement from a new Government, an evening or two of speechifying was the proper thing. There was a want, too, of that active opposition which, in default of some stirring question, enough in itself to excite and to furnish materials for speakers, is essential to good debate. But members made poor use even of the materials they had. The statement contained many subjects that might have been discussed with advantage. A great deal, for instance, might have been said upon the policy (much favoured by the late G-overn-ment) of making appropriations largely in excess of the expected revenue; or on the reasons for the astonishing unproductiveness of the Canterbury railways; or on the fusion of the schedules of estimates ; or on specific proposals, such as the abandonment of the Charitable Aid Department. But none of these subjecte was more than touched upon. The Council preferred discussing such comparatively insignificant matters as the vote for the Mueeum; or, when opposition did attempt a wider range, the arguments of the several objectors were so contradictory as to neutralise one another, and to render reply superfluous. One member attacked the Government for showing " dis- " graceful " tenderness towards property ; another, for imposing rates so heavy as to be ruinous to the ratepayers. r .One declared that the increase in the school building rate would bring education to a standstill; another, that the additional rate would only return what he called " the " paltry sum " of £5400. Government cannot be guilty on all these counts. Each charge is tantamount to an acquittal on the rest. If the returns from the rate will be "paltry," it will evidently not be so burdensome as to hinder the progress of education. Or if Government deserve the charge of severity in the imposition of rates, they cannot fairly be accused of excessive regard for property.

The debate ended without any connter motion. When the Provincial Treasurer sat down after his reply, the House went into Committee, and proceeded quietly to pSss several classes of the estimates. " The estimates as a whole," to use the term in vogue among members, have been accepted. So far then, the new Government have come off with flying colours. We must wait for another week, however, before we can venture to congratulate them. The crisis of their fate is still to come. They have prospered with their finance; it remains to be seen whether they will be equally fortunate with their Education Ordinance.