PARLIAMENTARY NEWS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14702, 9 December 1909, Page 8

PARLIAMENTARY NEWS.

NOTES FROM THE PRESS GALLERY. (PaoM Our Owk Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, Deoembcr 8. In regard to the hours of the telephone office at Kurow being extended, Sir William Steward has been informed that the staff at Kurow is too small to permit of this extension, and there would, morc--oyer, be little hope of a satisfactory service in opening the telephone office at a time when the staff was busiest with the despatch and receipt of trains ami mails.

EXPERIMENTS WITH GRASSES.

Mr Rhodes asked the Minister of Agriculture whether lie would this year place a sum on the Estimates to provide for the collection of. and experiments with, our native grasses, with .a view to ascertaining their suitability for grazing purposes in different parts of the Dominion. The Minister, in reply, stated that the question. of re-grassing our pastoral country was one of the very first importance, and the Government was about to further experiment by enclosing areas of 25 .icres for the purpose of ascertaining the extent to which native grasses would come again, lests wouid be made with both native and introduced grasses.

MR DONNE'S COLLECTIONS. Tho following question was put to the Government by Mr' Wright, to-day(l) Whether Mr T. li. Donne was allowed, while head of the Tourist Department, to have private work done in the way of bird-stuffing and the making of cases for flic same, such work being paid for wjt-h public money; and (2) why Mr Donne, while head of the Tourist Department, was enabled to purchase Maori curios, carvings, and carved houses? The reply was as follows" Some valuable skins belonging to ]\h' Donne were stuffed by the department in order that, at the International Exposition, New Zealand might be able to show.'some good specimens of its fauna. This was considered a service to the Dominion, and was done by Ministerial authority. The birds have al=o been shown in other places, and tlicy will be exhibited in the United Kingdom. Mr Donne lias for 30 rears been a collector, and possessed what was probably the most valuable collection in the Dominion. He placed it unreservedly at the disposal of the department without charge of any kind."