Political Paroxysms.

Observer, Volume XVI, Issue 925, 3 October 1896, Page 10

Political Paroxysms.

Special to the Observed

I say that the Bank of New Zealand is the strongest Bank south of the Equator. It is absolutely impregnable. But we have those in this country whose hatred to the country ia such that to injure the Colony they will send Home, and have sent Home, maliciously false information ' — The Premier. Maslin had a long question on the order paper regarding an amended Electoral Act. 'Yes.' said the Premier, which was probably the shortest speech of the session. ' In these days, utfesa you advertise you might as well be dead ' Thus the Premier, in justification of advertising the Government Life Insurance Department. 1 This running of trams on Sundays for pleasure is not only cruel to the unfortunate employees, but shows thescandalous selfishness that permeates the whole system.' — Collins. There was a stiff fight in the House on Thursday night on the question of including the Government Printing Office in the legalised Eight Hours system. Hutchison, senr., was strongly advocating this when Hall-Jones remarked, ' It would tell against the men.' ' You are speaking about a thing you know nothing about,' was the crushing reply of the member for Duhedin. ' I say the Eight Hours system would spread the work over a wider surface, which is what you are aiming at.' Tanner, on the Land for Settlement Act Amendment Bill : 'If we are going to invest the power in the Land Board, we had better burn the Bill, because it is wellknown that the Boards have not fulfilled expectations.' 'I'm not responsible for what appears in the newspapers, especially the Financial Aiews,' remarked the Premier. The Financial News has an awkward habit of brutal frankness in dealing with colonial finance. Maslin walked to his seat aDd trod on a wax vesta, causing a loud report, which startled him for the moment. 'You thought you were shot that time,' said the Premier. But Maslin tried to look brave under the trying circumstances. ' Whenever the Premier proposes legislating on any social question, there's always some member who rises up and moves to report progress, and if that is carried he says, " m nankGod, that question's settled for this session." But it seems to me that some of these subjects wili have che effect of settling some of the men who are so anxious to settle the questions.' Collins on the Eight Hours Bill. Riccarton Russell : ' The Land Boards do not visit and inspect the lands to be cut up.' Ashley: 'Yes they do.' Riccarton: 'Then, perhaps, that accounts for the frightfully heavy travelling expenses paid to them from time to time.' 1 If the Minister of Lands values his own peace of mind he will keep the Land Board as a buffer between himself and the people of Canterbury.' Marsden Thompson on the Land for Settlement Bill. ' I say let the man who has no land have the first offer, and then let the others have a chance.' — Marsden Thompson. 'It is not the Land Board that settlers have to contend against, but the compli cated machinery and red tape of the Minis- . ter of Lands Department.' Hogg on the Land for Settlement Bill. Lawry was reading a notice of motion, the only part of which was audible in the reporters' gallery being something about ' rabbits dying in thousands ' A member of the Left Wing interjected a remark, which was not heard in the gallery owing to a buzz of conversation amongst memDers. ' I wish the rats would die !' said Lawry in significant tones, looking daggers at the hon. member. The member for Aigmont, though undaunted by real danger, sufftrs from an hereditary horror of mice. Recently he changed his lodgings because one of the little rodents robbed him of sleep by gnaw,ing at the wall. Some practical joker, aware of this weakness, enclosed an imitation of a mouse in a packet addressed to the hon. member and marked ' urgent.' Aigmont opened the packet, and uttered a blood curdling yell which startled the House and the galleries, flung the dummy mouse across the chamber, and fled incontinently to another seat, amidst roars of laughter. It iB reported that Faiix has bought a ferocious terrier as a protector against the dreaded vermin.

Buchanan ib still on the warpath for that return of Ministers' travelling expenses, and particularly of the one who fonnd the ' pace too hot for him, and was obliged to lay up suffering a recovery. The Honße laughed heartily when Hogg and Buchanan were named joint tellers for the Ayes on Tuesday night, because they are always girdiDg at each other. The champion mean man of the House is a certain Civil Servant, who saves a penny every evening by annexing an Evening Post from the Press Gallery. T'owd man says the Usury Bill was suggested by the Civil Servants, who wanted to reduce the interest on their dress suits. R. J. Knight, a Wellington sailmaker, has petitioned Parliament, praying that a bill may be passed granting 100 acres of land to every father of ten children. Crowther : This Land for Settlement Bill is merely a Canterbury measure (Oh, oh !). How much of the money will go to Auckland ? (Oh, oh !) It's all very well to talk about a willing hand and a strong heart, but they are no use without the dollars. The dollars are always useful to willing hands and strong hearts. Meredith told the Btory of a man who drew an 1800 acre block in the Cheviot EBtate. Not having the money to pay the first six months rent in advance, he transferred his chance, for a consideration, to another man. A hon. member : ' Was that one of your constituents?' Ashley: No. Buchanan had been criticising the .Land for Settlement Bill. 'The hon. member does not know what he is talking about, and yet he gets up to instruct the House,' was the crushing comment of Lands McKenzie. ' The evil is not that 12 members of a family apply for different sections, but that they all apply for the same section, and thus have a 12 to 1 chance of getting the section.' — Pirani. During the discussion in Committee on the Land for Settlement Bill, Ward, exColonial Treasurer, was the only occupant of the Ministerial Benches. ' I am surprised at the virtuous indignation of the hon. member for Parnell,' said Marsden Thompson, who is probably the ooly man on earth who would be surprised at anything of the kind. Virtuous indignation is the normal condition of Parnell. Buchanan : ' I have seen 16 applicants for one block of land, and everyone knew they were dummies for the same person. Why should a man be favoured because he is the son of his father ?' Ah, why indeed, unless it be because he is the son of his mother ? but, at all events, Wairarapa knows all about it. ' There is no greater extortioner than the Government ia the country. If a person is a few days late in the payment of his Land or Income Tax, he is charged an extra 10 per cent, or at the rate of about .l"»(5f>0 per annum.' — Maslin, on the Usury Bill. ' The hon. member cannot understand the difference between penalties for breaches of law and interest. Even members of the House have penalised themselves to the extent of 100 per cent for absence from their Parliamentary duties.' — Seddon ia reply. It is whispered in the Press Gallery that some of the most slashing Opposition leading articles in the Post are from the pen of Sir Robert Stout. It was Major Stewart who really prevented a fight to a finish between McKenzie and Hutchison. Even the interposition of Seddon's burly form between Lands and the object of his wrath would not have saved Patea from annihilation, had not Stewart, at the critical moment, recalled McKenzie to a sense of dignity with the remark : ' For God's sake, remember you are a Minister of the Crown !' ' I beg leave to move a notice without motion, I mean a motion without notice.' — Graham, in moving for extension of time to the Banking Committee. ' A family consists of the wife's grandmother, husband's grandfather, and so on. I have been counting one family in Palmerston North district, and I find it consists of seventy persons. I think the mother and father and children are sufficient family for the purposes of the Land Settlement Bill. When these have had a chance for a section, we can pass on to the grandfather and grandmother. The limitations in the Bill look like an easy way of teaching us the catechism. (Lands : You don't know anything about the catechism.) Well, I think I know as much about it as you do, anyway.' But we rise to ask what ia thunder the catechism has to do with a Land Bill ?

' "Where the young men of a family settle on the land, the old man has to work the oracle and find the money.' — Meredith. Some employers, owing to the keenness of competition, are breaking away from the Eight Hoars Bysteni, and when yon allow anything of that kind yon mm the system altogether.— J. G. Smith. 'I am sorry the Government does not propose to limit the hours of labonr of the State employees. It is very well to preach, but I should like a little more practice. I have known co-operative labourers employed by the Government working 14 hours a day.' — Pirani on the Eight Hours Bill. 'To enforce the provisions of the Eight Hours Bill in large factories and to prohibit overtime would be the ruin of them.' — Marsden Thompson. ' Of all the measures that have been put forward in this or any other country, the Eight Hours Bill is held to be the most important in the interests of the labour organisation . ' — E arnsha w. ' Instead of a reduction in the hours of labour tending to reduce wages, as the hon. member for Riccarton says, they are higher in Dnnedin, where they work 15 hour-? a week, than in Ghristchurch, where they work 48. I would prefer that workmen should be paid by the hour.' — Earnshaw. ' The effect of payment by the hour would be to increase the number of casual labourers.' — Buddo. The House enjoyed a little joke directed against itself the other day. During the debate on the Eight Hours Bill, it was urged by several members that this Bill ought to be made to apply to Government employees and to the House. Someone suggested that the House might be classed as a factory within the meaning of the Act. ' That,' said Mr Kelly amidst loud laughter, • must be because we do such a lot of whitewashing.' And Mr Pirani remarked that 'he did not think much of the quality of the manufacture.' True, Teddy, there are a good mauy who think as you do. ' The Premier may be a very good miner, but what would he say if I were to declare that he knows nothing about mining ? Yet that is precisely the position he takes up in regard to the Government printing office, which he knows little or nothing about. I have been in the printing business for over 40 years, and I think I may say I know something about it.' — Willis. There was another lively scene at the House Banking Committee on Tuesday. Hutchison wanted a question he had asked on the preceding day entered upon the minutes, to which the Premier and a majority of the members objected. The Minister of Lands declared, in angry tones, that the time had come to decide whether Hutchison should continue to boss the Committee or should be removed from it. Hutchison (defiantly): 'I should just like to see you try it.' The Chairman : ' Order, order !' Lands :' I insist upon that remark being withdrawn.' Hutchison : ' I shall not withdraw it ' The Premier said where a member of a Committee persistently obstructed the business, the House might be asked to remove him. The dispute over the minutes having occupied about half an hour, the Premier accused Hutchison oi committing a breach of privilege in obtaining certain papers from the Hon. Mr Stevens (chairman of the Legislative Coancil Banking Committee). Hutchison : ' It doesn't matter in the least where I get my information from.' The Premier : 1 My authority is Mr Stevens himself, who told me tbat if he had known the purpose to which you meant to apply the papers, he would not have let you have them.' After fully an hour's wrangle, the Committee proceeded to business. We manufacture legislation in this House, and to that extent may be considered a iactory. Therefore, I think the Eight Hours Bill ought to apply to this House. (Laughter.)— Montgomery. Buddo : We do a lot of white-washing here. Piraui : But not always of the best quality. ' You may go the whole way and say that no one in New Zealand snail work more than eight hours a day, except the Premier, who, I believe, works sixteen hours a day.' — Montgomery. 'It is the cut throat competitor who stands in the way of the eight hours system. ' — Seddon. ' Where the Government employs thousands of hands they are to be exempt from the operation of the Eight Hours Bill, but a man who employs two hands is subject to the provisions of the Bill.' — Collins. Pirani was speaking on the Eight Houra Bill when Meredith interjected, ' But it isn't the Premier's Bill.' ' Well,' continued Palmerston, ' the Premier's name is at the head of the Bill, and if I put my name at the top of a promissory note, everybody j would say it was my bill.'

1 It is a sort of bogus Home Rule Bill for. the natives. I—Marsden1 — Marsden Thompson on the Native Reserves Bill. ' This Native Reserve Bill is in the interests of the pakeha-Maori, not of the natives. At every land court we see natives drank and rolling about the streets, and quite young Maori girls drank and demoralised. If they part with their lande, they are no better off. The lawyers and the pakeha-Maoris get all the benefit.'— Garnell. ' Under this Bill there will be one law for the native and another for the European. It proposes to vest a large tract of land -m the natives, and to set up an impeiium in impcrio. The Bill is unnecessary. Civilisation is spreading. These natives are engaged in shearing every year. If we had a policy of non- interference, land would be available for settlement whenever it is wanted.' — Captain Russell on the Wiwera District Native Reserve Bill. During the present session 200 Bills have been introduced Out of 84 Bills on the Order Paper 42 survived the slaughter of the innocents. At present (Thursday) there are 40 Bills on the Order Paper, and at least half of them are doomed to die a premature death. There used to be an old Draconian law that any man who proposed a law should appear with a halter round his neck, and if the law failed to pass he was hanged out of hand. We want a law like that in New Zealand, The Pout positively alleges that the Government contemplates passing a special Act of Parliament to remove liquidation of the Colonial Bank beyond the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, and is actually considering the appointment of another judge who may prove more complaisant than Mr Justice Williams. ♦We believe, and have reason to believe,' says the Post, ' speaking with a full sense of responsibility, that these scandalous things are meant .' Whoa, Emma ! A new evening paper, to be called the Echo, will make its appearance in Wellington on Saturday evening. I hear the pro* moterß do not propose to join the Press Association, and will dispense with telegraphic intelligence, which points to the belief that it is intended to be merely an ephemeral electioneering organ. It is said to have the Ministerial support, and is manned by West Coasters on the cooperative principle. The sensational incident of the Bank Inquiry on Wednerday was the confession of Mr Butt, auditor of the Bank of New Zealand, that it had been discovered that a further £50,000 would be required to cover a certain account. In reply to the Minister of Lands, the witness was unable to say whether there were any other accounts in the same position, though he did not think it likely that another call would be made upon the State. The Minister of Lands: ' I dont think,' you say. You said the other day that you had got to bed rock, and you are not even there now.' Witness : 'I am as sure a 9 one can be who relies on estimates.' The Minister : ' I don't mean to probe this matter f nrther, because if I do I daaeaay the witness will not reply to me.' Thia is a cheerful look-out for the taxpayers of the country. As to 'reaching bedrock, 1 it would have been a good thing for the country if some of the persons chiefly responsible for the position of the Bank had a closer acquaintance with blue metal fora definite period.