Parliamentary Notes.

Hastings Standard, Issue 111, 3 September 1896, Page 2

Parliamentary Notes.

IN HOUSE AND COUNCIL,

[By Telegraph.]

( From our Special Correspondent.)

Wellington, This day,

At last the Asiatic Restriction Bill has passed through the Council but the haven of safety was only found after a very tempestutons passage. When the measure came up yesterday afternoon the Hon Mr McLean made an ineffectual attempt to have it recommitted and the question " That the Bill do pass " was not allowed to be put without the Hon Mr Shrimski calling for a division. The third reading was, however, carried by 16 to 12. Both sittings of the House have been taken up with the third reading of the Loan Bill. Nearly all the big guns spoke in the afternoon, the order of speakers being the Premier, Captain Russell, the Minister of Lands, Sir R. Stout, and Hon Mr Buchanan. The House was told by the Premier that unless the Bill passed notice must be given of the cessation of all public works at the end of this month, while the Leader of the Opposion declared that the measure was nothing less than a flagrant attempt to bribe every constituency in the colony. The Chinese merchants in Wellington, through the Hon Mr Shrimski, have presented a memorial for presentation to the Governor asking His Excellency to withhold his assent to the Asiatic Restriction Bill. The members of the Council who were opposed to the Bill have entered on the Journals of the Council a protest against its passage on the ground that it is an arbitrary measure based 011 thfe assumption that New Zealand was threatened with an influx of Chinese and Asiatics; and that it is undesirable and impolitic for the colony, forming a comparatively small part of the Empire, to pass a law practically excluding a great part of Asia ; and that such action is calculated to restrict trade, lead to international complications, and possibly embarrass the relations of the Imperial Government with the intelligent natives of Asia.