PARLIAMENTARY

Observer, Volume 3, Issue 54, 24 September 1881, Page 28

PARLIAMENTARY

LOBBY GOSSIP.

BY ELECTRIC TFLEGRAPR.

(FKOM OUR OWN COBRESPONDENT.) WELLINGTON, Thursday. — Hall is going, I hear, to make a large batch of Peers. — There is much amusement here re Bertie Saverna's correspondence with John King, and the Central Committee. — The West Coast Reserves Bill is called here "A Bill to Provide Colonel Trimble, or some other waiter on Providence, with a Billet." — On Saturday night, "when O'Rorke was pleading for a burying-ground for Onehunga, lie aaid there was not such a thing in existence as the County of Eden. — Last week the House commenced sitting on Monday at 11 a.m. and finished on Saturday at 12 a.m. to the minute. Hall then regretted he could not pass one or two more little Bills through. — On Monday Saunders wanted the House to adjourn for a month and then deal with what he called the main business of the session. Bowen said they could do no good in Wellington, so members had better go and see if they could employ their time more profitably elsewhere. — When the property vote was under debate on Friday evening another problem came up for Swanson to solve. If a man witli a £10 leasehold was to have a vote, should a man with £100 leasehold have 10 votes ? — The only good tiling that has come out of the New Plymouth Harbour enquiry is the suspicion awakened in the minds of Southern men that Atkinson's additions are not made in accordance with the rules of Cocker. — Fraser did not get any good by telling Parliament that he was unjustly accused of cheating at cards in the Northern Club, as the Public Petitions Committee paid but small heed to his complaint. — Murray described some branch lines in both Islands as suckers, not feeders, to railways, and another Southern man remarked that now the South had got its foot on the neck of the North that it would keep it there. — Pyke and Seddon are not fairly matched. Pyke has a paper in which he can give a coloring to j Ma own deeds. Seddon has not, so I see Pyke has given his version of the row with Seddon in j the Dunedin Herald, a version evidently unfaithful and untrue. — Fox disclaims the Licensing Bill, says it is j not his Bill, and no one seems anxious to claim its paternity. One of the foremost things in the Bill is the clause which gives clubs a charter. Seddon said the word " permit " would be more appropriate than " charter," when G-rey wanted to know if a club charter is to bear the impression of the great seal of the colony. — The old proverb that " no man can serve two masters " is not exemplified in New Zealand politics. For instance, on Saturday night Swanson told the Government they must not proceed with the Special Powers and Contracts Bill, and progress was reported at once. On Monday morning Saunders told them to go on with the Corrupt Practices Bill, and they did so at once. — During one of the many of Seddon's speeches (and of which speeches, and the man, Barron remarked that if the hon. gentleman's knowledge were equal to his loquacity he would be a large power in the House), he said in Westland the County Council was composed of nine councillors, and then there was no chance for a long time of electing a chairman, as every councillor wanted to fill that position. — Dignan put on a wonderfully indignant air when he was challenged with being a shareholder in the Rotorua line, but he took the same ground as Williamson did, that he was not a shareholder, only a director, a distinction which many people in the Council could not understand. There has not been such hot blood in the Council for years as there has been over this Railway Construction Bill. As the Representation Bill had broke up parties in the House so the Railway Bill will break up the compact party in the Council. — The representative of the Brogdens in New Zealand gave one or two political dinners when in the joy of his heart the continuous Ministry had fallen, or was falling, by refusing to allow the firm to fill a petition of right. Old Whitaker punishes the firm for the giving of the dinners. The claim, however, does not die, and the colony will have to pay ten per cent, interest on its amount. What a scandal it will be to us should Mr Brogclen go Home and tell the English money world that ho can get no justice from the New Zealand Government. — When the Estimates were going through, Hall told Shrimski that a sum of £1,500 was down on the Estimates to build or improve the railway-station at Oamaru, when Shrimski said the vote was wanton waste of money. Half-a-dozen members then wanted a transfer of the vote to be made to their districts, Lundon amongst the number. Hokianga is now as familiar a name in the House of Representatives as London or Paris, so much has Lundon done to add renown to the district where he dwelt. — Looking over my note-book, in which my Observer memoranda are kept, I find Hurst down on every page. He plays a prominent port in tlie scope of my horizon ; he is one of the forms of the House, and he knows it. He told the Assembly on Saturday night, amid much laughter, that he was a representative — that he had given a bridge to Onehunga, and bought the springs there for a slaughter-house ; that he disliked carpet-bag voters ; that working men were too often drones ; that he paid for 80 propertyholders at the last election, and that he did not like shams. The rumour is current that in the

event of his not finding a seat in the House, the. Government will lend him a seat in the Council. — There is a man living in Hawke's Bay called Harding. He has some dispute with the natives about a piece of land which Government included wrongfully in a Crown grant. He wanted the natives to* be ejected by force, and failing that, wanted compensation at the rate of £100 per acre for land not worth more than £10. He is chief among the Good Templars and Chi'istinns in that part of the world. He came to Wellington to see the Government and consult ovor his case. He was heard before the Native Affairs Committee, and a report was agreed to which would settle the matter honestly, but this Christian Good ' Tcinplar, when he went back to his home, had a horse put in a buggy, and provided with firearms went past the disputed grounds, and from the Queen's highway shot the pigs of natives who were living on the land. This story Sheehan told in the House this afternoon, and at the same time informed the Colonial Secretary that Mr Harding of Mt. Evernon was a Justice of the Peace. — Mr Rich was going to England by the next mail if the Railway Construction Bill had not passed. He now intends to wait another month, I am told ; and yet. it was a near thing in the Lords. They cackled over the Bill for nearly a week. They put on all the pressure they could to get Sheehan to secure the Maori votes, and yet only carried the Bill by a majority of three, and these three votes were challenged, their owners having an interest in the Bill. Ready-money Robinson challenged them by name, and told the Council they were called Williamson, Dignan, and Hart. Reynolds said there was a large amount of outside influence brought to work to carry the Bill, and one Southern Councillor felt so intense an interest in the passing of the measure that he paired with two men. When the Corrupt Practices Bill was passing the Committee on Monday night Wallis complained bitterly of the blackmail levied by the Auckland journals on candidates for Parliament, and stated that he knew one instance where a man had been blackmailed to the extent of £70. He was very anxious for the House to fix a limit to the sum a candidate should pay to any one newspaper for advertising his address, and thought, with Saunders, that the sum of £5 was sufficient for any candidate to |p;ty to any one newspaper for printing and advertising. The Bill woidd not have been brought forward at all had not Saunders in the morning given Hall a long lecture about his neglect to proceed with the Bill. By its provision a candidate may have postci's printed, but he cannot get them distributed unless he does so himself. Taking this view of the case, Sheehan asked the Hoiise to think what a remarkable picture it would form to see the Colonial Secretary going about Dunedin with a bundle of bills under his arm, paste-pot in hand, sticking up posters with " Vote for Dick." Barron wanted a Bill to make all men vote, whereupon Bowen snirt, " There are plenty of men who would give a guinea not to vote."