COMMENTS ON THE DEBATE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2686, 6 September 1905, Page 53

COMMENTS ON THE DEBATE.

STIRRING SPEECH BY MR T. MACKENZIE.

CFbom Oub Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, September 2. The best speech delivered in the land question debate in the House yesterday was undoubtedly that of Mr Tho3. Mackenzie. Tha member for Waikouaiti was very effec-"-tive in his criticism of the extraordinary position ta.ken up by Mr Seddon. "When the Premier introduced his resolutions last year for setting up this Royal Commission," said Mr , Mackenzie,, "he said that they Imus!; not hurry in tlie^dark ; that they must i-,have time. This year one cannot but think ! of t the' lines -of that hymn, and I apply tham to tlie "Govern mentt" "Lead- kindly ..light, amid the encircling gloom;

Lead thbu^me on; ' The' night is dark;, and I am far from iiome, Lead thou. me on.'.'' " — (Laughter.) The Government, he said, should be responsible for the administration and legislation of the country and crystallise its abstract thought into concrete principles, , and express those principles in the shape of a bill. Regarding Mr Seddon's now famous baok-to-the-wall speech, Mr Mackenzie pictured the Premier as saying:— "l am going to .stand for a distinct in which there are leading questions exercising the minds of the electors—prohibition, Bible-reading in schools, freehold, and the elective executive — and I go round andve.ay, ' I would just like, merely by way of by play, that you should assemble and come to conclusions as to whether you "are more" in favour of Biblereading in schools than against it; that you are more in favour of prohibition than against' it ; and when we have got you to decidjj all these matters by your vote we will then frame a speech, and we will tell you that our backs will be then to the wall. If three-fourths of you are. in favour of Bible-reading in schools, no inducement tinder heaven will cause us to depart from that policy: if nine-tenths of you are in favour of the freehold we will see all the leaseholders to kingdom come before wo ever so much as dream of the leasehold.' " At a later stage Mr Mackenzie quoted Carlyle's description of a public man who • said "he was going on a voyage whitherward in a vessel called Friendship, and that he was going to the tune of "AH the winds," and that he would inevitably arrive at the port of Nowhere, and that he was a modern Christopher- Columbus on a voyage of discovery. ".What have we now in this Parliament?" asked Mi* Mackenzie. ',' Modern Christopher Columbuses starting on voyages of discovery, going, shall we say, on the vessels Resolutions and Royal Commissions? They are going to waltz to the tune of all . the tenures, and inevitably they will get into the tiort of Nowhere, and hope before the sth of next December to get rid of some of their troublesome crews, ship their anchors, and sail away with the most favourable- breeze on another successful voyage of three years." This sally while it was gall and wormwood to the Ministry and some of its country supporters, was hugely enjoyed by the Opposition,* by the Independents', and by crowded galleries, the occupants of which laughed heartily at it. A TIRED HOUSE.

The majority of members took but slight interest in the debate last evening. Apparently they recognised that the result waa a foregone conclusion, for the freeholders on the Government side of the House are evidently like Lowell's famous politician— "A merciful Providence fashioned them hollow in order that they might their principles swallow." For the greater part of the night the Premier did not think it worth while to appear in the House, and most of the members, following his lead, aleo made themselves scarce. The army of emptybenches during the evening was a good indication of the email measure of importance attached to the discussion. Member after member addressed between 20 and 30 members, and in the later stages of the debate there was barely a quorum present. Their constituents, however, had to he addressed through the convenient medium o£ Hansard, and so they struggled on, regardless of the deserted state of the Chamber. The moving of the adjournment at a\quarter past 1 was gladly- agreed to by the few members who rom.ained in the» places, and tha maiority

of whom were in a more or less somnolent condition.

A PRESS COMMENT.

To-night's Post, dealing editorially with the introduction of the Premier's proposals, saya: — "Seldom indeed has the Premier figured to less advantage. He was as glaringly weak as he was obviously wrong, and even the laboured display of stage thunder in which he indulged by way of exordium only excited the hilarity of those at whom it was aimed. When he settled down to deal with what was supposed to be the business part of his speech in less melodramatic fashion, the House still refused to take him seriously, and the running firs of jocular rommentary with which it was interspersed by the Opposition raised no counter demonstration on his own side of the House, for he gave nothing to demonstrate about, except in a hostile or a derisive sense." The Post, it must be remembered, is dead against the Opposition on the question of freehold versus leasehold. The following comment from the same article may therefore be taken as a very high tribute to Mr Massey. *It reads: — "Mr Massey presented an enviable contrast to the Premier in almost every respect. He spoke clearly, strongly, and straightforwardly, and with an obvious conviction of the truth _of what he was saying. His clean, hard hitting impressed the House, which bad only been demoralised by the previous display."