PEARLS FROM PARLIAMENT

Free Lance, Volume V, Issue 215, 13 August 1904, Page 20

PEARLS FROM PARLIAMENT

DOES the honouiable member take me to be a walking encyclopaedia 9 —The Right Hon. Mr. Seddon. * * * The Premier entered the Ministry as a servant, he became a mastei, and then he became a tyrant. Sometimes he persuades you, sometimes he bullies you, but always he "does" you.— Mr. 1. Taylor. I do not want a Government billet, and I can affoid to be very independent ; and I am going to stand up for fair play if I never see the mside ot tlm house any more —Mr Mandei . * * * For myself, I would prefer to such flowery expiessions as "unique and lovely islands," "appalling grandeui , "paradise of the British Empire, in Mr. Oseba's works, or in the works of the numerous subsidised wnteis who are paid to advertise the colony and the Government. The grandiloquent style does not strengthen any Financial Statement, nor does the recurrence of sudh expressions as "empiie-buildmg and "empire-making," and so on, make us any more loyal.— Mi. Kirkbnde * * * It has been stated by a gentleman who does not seem to be sufficiently paiticular in the statements he makes that £24,000 has been spent on telegrams during the past thiee years to advertise the Prime Minister. The total amount spent is £700.— Mi . Seddon * * * There is a building not a hundred miles from Wellington containing I do not know how many people, and lam informed they go to work at ten o'clock in the morning, and knock off at foui o'clock in the afternoon, and they get very high salaries ; and with a decreased public-works expenditure there cannot be the same amount of work going on there. Yet there is no reduction in the number of men employed in the publac service ; and when the Government are forced to economise they are going to economise among the old age pensioners. — Mr. J. C. Thomson. * * * I must say he (Mr. J. Allen) gave us a very fair criticism of the Financial Statement. But, if his criticism was mild — in fact, generous — I could not discover any consistency about his fault-finding. We had a series of congratulations, followed by another series of recriminations — a sort of hotch-potch of praise and scoldine: — a kind of goodnatured edition of "Mrs Caudle's Curtain Lectures." — Mr. Hogg. * • • I admit that I am astounded at the moderation of Ministers, because they are in the habit of spending eveiv penny they can lay their hands on, and much that they have no right to lay their hands on. But, if there is one Department in the colony that wants more watching than another at the present time it is the Public Health Department.—Sir W. R Russell. * * ♦ I consider the proposal to continue the leasehold and abolish the freehold a double-barrelled insanity. — Mr. Kirkbride. * * * If the proceedings have been intended to give the member for Taranaki the galleries for this evening, I think the leader of the Opposition has been wrong in doing that. — The Prime Minister * * * We have schools dwindling rapidly. Occasionally when I ask a competent teacher why he wishes a ohange of school he tells me is no longer earning a living wage. He relates how the families are gradually leaving the settlements to go into the towns. — Mr. Hogg. * » • Why does any member want to bother himself for any information about the finances of the colony? It is not right for them to it. The Premier says we have the right to ask for returns. Mark you, to ask for returns ! What more do we want? And what good are they, considering they come two years after they were asked foi ?— Mr. T. Tayloi . * * * If I wanted to get you, and tie you up, and laugh at you — you would be trussed up like a turkey for the oven — I would accept the amendment. — The Premier. * • • The honourable member for Taranaki (Mr. E. M. Smith) who has been hanging on tenter hooks part of the time and

sitting perfectly supine when lie telt how impossible it was to address himself this afternoon to those gieat questions of finance which occupy his mind. — Sir W. R. Russell. * ■*• * Som© twelve months ago the honourable member foi Chustchuroli City wa> tracing my genealogy back to some Highland robber who flouiished about four or five hundied years ago Ido not think that I can trace the honourable gentleman's ancestors in the Highlands, but I believe that I could tiack ham back through his ancestors to Arabia. There we would find that he was a lineal descendant of Hagar. He lepresents Is'hmael as well as anyone in this House, for it seems to me that his hand is against everyone. — Mr. Laurenson * * * I am not very anxious to prolong this debate, and, as my bell has rung, I will conclude by reciting a poem — The poor Opposition look tattered and torn, As they sit over there they appear quite forlorn ; They'ie all that remain of a poor ship■wreckpd crew, And, to make matteis worse, they're growing old, too. (much more, equally luminous). That's me t_Mi. E. M. Smith