LOBBY AND GALLERY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1749, 13 September 1905, Page 42

LOBBY AND GALLERY.

THE POLITICAL WEEK.

{Parliament lias' finished its eleventh. [Week. With the advent of spring, sunny days, and warm nights, members are gently reminded that the end draws near. Their opponents in the electorates have already commenced the election campaign; yet judging from rhe little business done in the House, the disinclination to do it, and the extraordinary loquacity, it would seem members are not at all anxious to start [Wooing their constituents. The third week in September has been reached; the end of November will see a new Parliament. 'There is not a long internal between these dates for members to get to work (legitimately) electioneering. It seems, though, as if the session were just starting. The Consolidated Estimates are still on the stocks, and that is where most measures also at present remain.

The lands debate, which continues to drag wearily along, was intercepted on Friday to enable progress to be made with the Estimates. Progress was very slow indeed; each class was contested. The same information in regard to the items was furnished last session, and the session before, but members like to hear the old story retold. On the Estimates the audience of members is very limited. They take things very leisurely. “A night on the Estimates” is the dullest thing in the world. Custom and precedent is not by any means departed from, and so matters that have been elaborated on “question day” for the past eleven weeks fire revived as though they were all new,-whereas a perusal of “Hansard” would save members from keeping Ministers in the chair for hours ahd hours.

Interest during the week centred considerably in the actions of the “New Liberal” party. The “tragedy of the missing voucher,” as the member for Masterton pertinently called it with Shakespearian fervour, transcended all other business in point of interest- The “New Liberals” had declared with emphasis that the report of the AuditorGeneral would be carefully stowed away in some Government pigeon-hole, and thus they would not have a chance to ■tear it to pieces. But in this prediction they were mistaken, as indeed they have been in other things. When least expected, and in the presence of comparatively empty galleries in the afternoon, the Premier threw down the gauntlet. The end is known. A feature of the proceedings in the evening, .when the telephones had been got actively to work to let the ladies know that there were “exciting times on in the House,” was the, crowded state of the ladies’ gallery until after midnight. The prospect of even losing the last ,+tram did not deter many from seeing the business almost right through. ,The sight or needles plied merrily above the Chamber at midnight must have been cheering to members.

The speeches on the land question during the week did not shed any new light on that absorbing topic. From a freeholders’ standpoint, that of Sir * iWilliam Russell was perhaps the most convincing. On this subject, the member for Hawke’s Bay is always interesting, for he represents a constituency pf freeholders, and in his speech he argued on broad lines, to show that the experience of the world was in favour of a people that possessed the freehold inure. The leaseholders had a (ptrong champion in Mr Millar, and from their point of view, there has so far been no better advocacy of the leasehold principles during this debate. It was a clear challenge, on behalf of the labour party of the cities, to the coun- ... try party. Members of the latter party in the House who followed the member for Dunedin took up the cudgels, and claimed that it was such speeches that would strengthen the hands of those who were pleading the cause of the Crown tenants to own the land on which the State had placed them. The lands question, so. far as the present debate goes, is about exhausted. Tomorrow night should see a division on the amendment of the leader of the Opposition, in which he alleges the Government has forfeited “the confidence of' this House.”

Saturday morning, when the clock was showing the hour of 2, the member foe iWaikouaiti roused a weary House with his snuff-box. The ingredients it contained are not exactly known, but he set members sneezing as they had never done before. Amidst it all, the electric lights went out. Members for a time sat in darkness and in snuff. Some sinister motive was suggested. The Southern member, however, had the laugh at the expense of his compatriots. Then he told in the lobbies how years ago his snuff-mull was placed under the nose of a snoring member, who on awaking nearly blew off the roof of the Chamber. “There’s no division,” said a sympathiser sitting near, “but if there were the noes would have it.” “Yes.” replied the aggrieved member, amidst laughter, “and if I knew who did that, the eyes would have it.”