AN ALL ROUND ATTACK.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1842, 12 November 1897, Page 3

AN ALL ROUND ATTACK.

The introduction of an Imprest Supply Bill was made the opportunity of an attack on the general administration of the Govern* ment by Mr George Hutchison, who com* plained of the refusal of Ministers to furnish the returns asked by hon. members since the session began. One of these opposed motions was in his own name, and had reference to the prisoners released at the time of the Queen’s Jubilee. He found fault especially with the clemency of the Crown being extended to a half-caste named Rollins, who had been sentenced to death for a murder on the East Coast, and afterwards had his sentence commuted to imprisonment for life; and to the notorious Roderick M'Kenzie—(great laughter at the expense of the member for Buller)—who had been a gaol-bird practically since he was twelve years old. He had also failed to get a return of Ministers’ travelling expenses. The Premier, since his Jubilee junketings, had lost control of the House. He had not advanced the business of the country, but had brought things into confusion. He had refused to admit the rights of the Opposition being respected, but until Ministers put the closure on members would not be deprived of the opportunity of ventilating their grievances. —Speaking with some warmth, the Minister of Lands charged the member for Patea with asking for returns in a way that he knew would render compliance with his request impossible. His object was to make capital with the country because the returns asked for by him had been refused. It was simply absurd to charge the Government with being corrupt because the returns were not furnished. As to the released prisoners, there were only some eighteen or twenty of them all told, and the Government had been urged by the other colonial Governments to act jointly with them in marking the Queen’s Jubilee in the manner indicated. The majority of those recommended for the clemency of the Crown had only a few weeks of their sentence to serve, and Roderick M'Kenzie would have been released in the ordinary course in two or three weeks. As to the Native serving a life sentence, he was recommended for release by the local prison authorities because of hia lengthened incarceration and good behaviour. The inspector in charge of the Prisons Department had recommended the release of the prisoners to whom the clemency of the Crown had been extended, and the insinuation that favoritism had been displayed by the Cabinet was indignantly repudiated. —Mr M'Guire revived hia grievance concerning the treatment of the New Plymouth bondholders, and charged the ex-Treasurer (the Hon. J. G. Ward) with deceiving them.—After considerable discussion the Premier expressed surprise at the departure made that afternoon in treating an Imprest Supply Bill as the occasion of an ordinary motion for setting up Supply and ventilating grievances on it. The Government could not always occupy the Treasury benches, and those responsible for the innovation would have to repent it. So far as the released prisoners were concerned, it was solely on humane grounds that the return asked for has been refused.—(Laughter.) The men were not free, and it'was not right that their names should be placed on the parliamentary records, or be published throughout the and breadth of the colony, for no oth iv. '*" that it was a return withheld