The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY). FRIDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1905. A SPRING POEM-AND PARLIAMENT.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 5712, 6 October 1905, Page 4

The New Zealand Times

(PUBLISHED DAILY). FRIDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1905. A SPRING POEM-AND PARLIAMENT.

VITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE “ WELLINGTON INDEPENDENT.” ESTABLISHED ISIS.

It was a long-expected visitor that yesterday Wellington welcomed—the New Zealand Spring. Though in this more favoured South-land there is not the universal relief felt at the end of the long bleak winter of the Mother Country, yesterday there was a warmth in the air, an exhilaration in tho cloudleas blue sky, a gladness in the prodigality of the sun. that told us tho summer was on its way. The streets were filled with promenading heauty arrayed in new' daintiness; the hatters’ windows were but an efflorescence of straw hats, the drapers’ blossomed alluring loveliness. For the day momentous questions were forgotten; in that clear sunlight what smoker would crowd into railway shelters to inconvenience the protesting non-smoker, and who, when there were sunny streets to saunter in, would crowd into a tramcar, and have to give up his purchased seat to weary woman ?

Everywhere was irresponsibility, everywhere the instinctive desire to loaf and invite one’s soul. Everywhere but in. one big decorous Chamber, where tlie legislators of this country prosaically meandered through the minor intricacies of our stupendous administrative system. All that beautiful afternoop they , deliberately debated, certain soulless tilings called reports of select committees, and an equally dull thing called the Government Advances to Settlers Act Amendment BUI (No. 2); while, entranced and awe-stricken, a long thin line of , little school-girls sat in the ladies’ gallery and gazed on the dreary proceedings below, and another bevy of school-boys stared at them from the strangers’ gallery. , It is rumoured that ..tho pied piper who had beguiled the children away from the ; sunlight into this gloomy legislative concern was Mr Barber. M.H.R. And all that afternoon the House strenuously made the laws for this country, and as a result of the sitting the business of the colony moved exactly two steps down the staircase of one hundred and eleven legislative steps set down on the order-paper for that day. Whereas at 2.30 p.m. there were one hundred and eleven bills to be considered. tho afternoon’s sitting left only one hundred and nine yet to be disposed of. Outside was the sun . . .

the question is. was it worth, while? But perhaps the riot of the “ichor of spring” makes us a little hard on that afternoon’s work. Let us ho fair, and compare yesterday with other afternoons when Naturo did not so insistently call. On Wednesday the House satisfied a breathless country by answering questions of the greatest , moment. Here is one, asked by the Hon Sir W. J. Steward“ Whether he (the Minister for Railways) has considered the representations made to him in June last by a deputation at Glenavy as to the necessity for moving the cattle-yards to a more convenient position; and, if so, will this he done?” The Minister for Railwavs. however, unflinchingly met the charge. His printed reply sets this great question for ever at rest:—“The cattleyards at Glenavy are sufficiently large to meet all the requirements of the business, and are already placed in the most convenient position. It has been found, however, that one of the gates ‘of the stockyards! was hung the wrong way; this is being altered.” The country will thus see that not even a stockyard gate can ho hung the wrong wav without the Minister for Railways hanging it the right: way. ; ' And, in addition to his deep concern for wrongly hung stock-gates, the Minister for Railways has time to pay a compliment to the ladies of Kawakawa. Mr Houston, has their interests in hand; one feels sure that such a champion of the sox as ho would give up his seat in the tram, whether the lady was a “mere girl”' or a “weary-worn’’-faced woman. Liston to the invective he flung against the Minister for Railways in his concern for the ladies of Kawakawa. Indignantly, he demanded—lf the Minister for Railways would enlarge the waiting-room for ladies at the Kawakawa Station, “as at present there is no protection against wind and fain, and it is simply a disgrace to any civilised district? Will he recognise that the ladies of Kawakawa and surrounding districts are equally deserving of consideration as are the ladies of any other part of the colony?” The Minister for Railways promised vague things for • the ladies of Kawakawa on the removal of the present station buildings to a new site; hut the main indictment he most gallantly met:—“l quite agree with the honourable member”—such are his memorable words —“ that the ladies of' Kawakawa are deserving of every consideration, and when the time arrives for the provision or a new station at Kawakawa I shall take cafe to see that due appreciation is shown to them. From what I have heard the honourable member say, I am fully satisfied that they are quite entitled to the same consideration as ladies in other parts of the colony.” After th.it, the ladies of Kawakawa can sleep o’ tights—and the country can rest assured that its business is being attended to—even when the spring and the election are calling! And above the Houses of Parliament, in all their glory of gold, shimmered all the afternoon the gorsc-covered hills. And we must remember that it was Parliament in its might that decided that goree was a noxious weed. That steep 'range of hills behind the town is. Wellington’s one natural beauty; it is an irresponsible question—born of the coming of Spring—whether it would not bo better to let that golden garment beautify those hills for ever. Taking into consideration the small amount that the Council gets for its grazing rights, and the impossibility of

ever building on those precipices, surely—since wo are in the irresponsible mood of Spring—might not the City Fat here let kindly Nature cover up the baroness of steep and denuded hillsides by the sumptuous garment of the gor.se ?