Political Paroxysms

Observer, Volume XVIII, Issue 1023, 6 August 1898, Page 18

Political Paroxysms

In the courae of the discussion on the Auckland Private Electric Lighting Bill.Mr O'Regan (member for Buller) stated that 'he had received a communication from the secretary of the Auckland Liberal Association condemning the measure.' Which shows that the secretary ia not taking any monopolies, whatever President Beehan is doing.

Mr Smith (Christchurch) : At the present time we have the liquor question practically dominating the election of members of this House.

•I can no longer defend the Labour legislation that "does not include every employee of the Government.' — Mr Hutcheson.

Hon. Pinkerton: Grand juries are an encumbrance to the administration' of justice.

, ' The country and the House is weary of being muzzled and gagged by the Right Hon. the Premier.'— Mr Wason.

Mr Smith (Christchurch), referring to the Licensing Bill : A bill which has been introduced mainly in the interests of the brewers of this colony.

A modest declaration by George Fisher : The harbour-works of Wellington are not only equal, but are superior, to those of any other port, either in Australia or New Zealand.

' We have far too many local governing bodies, and we want to go in the direction ol amalgamating these bodies, and extending their functions.'— Mr Moore.

Mr Hogg: It is a notorious fact that goods are often conveyed from Great Britain to New Zealand for a less charge than they are conveyed from -the ports of Sydney and Melbourne to Wellington.

' These Bills are bundled together by the Law Officers, with little or no revision from the Government, and then they have to be pulled to pieces and pat in a workable shape when they go into Committee.'—Mr Buchanan.

Tommy Taylor : I only feel a rebuke from a man who is clean-handed, and therefore I ignore rebukes from the Premier.

' I have listened with the greatest pain to what has been said by some "of these honourable gentlemen who in this Chamber claim to represent labour. It has been a degradation to the name of labour in this colony.'— Hon. Mr Ormond.

Mr Bollard : And so it goes on from year to year, bit by bit, until very soon we shall have property taxed to that extent that we may jnst as well go in for the single-tax and tax the owners out of possession altogether.

Mr Moore : Hiß (Mr Morrison's.) speech has been devoted to a tirade of abuse against the property-owners. That, however, is so usual that we seldom get anything else from the honourable gentleman.

' To go and give Tom, Dick, or Harry, who may be on the parliamentary roll, the power to vote for raising money, as you do indirectly when you give them power to vote for councillors, is, I think, going too far altogether.'— Mr Wilson.

The Premier, referring to the overcrowded state of the Seacliff Asylum : I say that that is a scandal, because the doctor is living in palatial quarters there in the same building. He has got quarters fit for a prince ; and would it not be much better that the doctor should give his quarters to his patients rather than to have to report such a state of things? And this also applies to the Christchurch Asylum.^ Hon. T. Kelly on State Farmß : When persons of a most industrious character and with a knowledge of farming pursuits find it so difficult to make money, how wonld a Government establishment pay with workers who know nothing about cultivation, and where the Government found the money, and where the officer had to deal with persons who either would not or could not work ? Minister' of Lands: Machinery has come into use for farming purposes to the same degree as it has into other branches of industry. There was now but little labour required on a farm. Therefore, even if the Government bought a large area of land close to the large centres of the colony, we would have to put machinery npon it to make it profitable, and really very few labourers would be able to get work on these farms.

' I believe the Auckland people are asleep.' — The Premier,

Mr Morrison : We seem to have put the cart before the horse in this colony.

*We all know that the member for Caversham (Morrison) is a barracker for the Government, and we don't care twopence what he says.'— Mr Herries.

Mr Smith : No greater privilege should be extended to the clubs of the colony than are at present extended to the holders of publicans' and other licenses.

' There are few members of thia Houae who would care to go on the public platform and advocate a universal eleven o'clock closing hour.'— Mr Smith.

Hon. Walker : I know no class of more honourable and independent men throughout the whole colony than the Stipendiary Magistrates.

The Premier: Wellington deserves very little in the shape of buildings, for when the Government commenced to put up a building which would be a credit to the colony and to Wellington, the first impeachment came from Wellington.

Mr Millar : In connection with the eleven o'clock license, it is in vogue every day in almost every part of the colony. And, if that is the case, why not settle it by statute ?

Hon. Mr Shrimski: These (labour) measures, as far as I can see, are only forced on the Government.

'It is asserted that goods are conveyed from remote portions of the world — from America, from Great Britain, and from Germany — to New Zealand for no more than was charged by the Union Company in conveying goods, say, from Auckland to Dunedin.' — Mr Hogg.

' I do not see why we shouldn't get up-to-date steamers and make them a portion of the Railway service, worked under and by the Railway Department. We could get our money for this purpose just as cheaply as any company could get it, and I can't see any reason why we should not work the service as economically as any company.' — The Premier.

George Hutchison : If there is further money to be borrowed and lent under the Advances to Settlers Office, we must insist upon the administration being purged of everything in the nature of politics, and the first reform ought to be that the honourable gentleman who rules the roost when he is there — the Minister of Lands — ought to be removed.

' I want to know what reason there is for limiting the extended franchise to the boroughs. Why should not the vote be brought into operation throughout the whole country? Surely matters ;of sanitation are of as great importance to a Road Board district as -they are to a borough ?' —Mr Taylor. The Premier on overcrowded asylums : If you had a Commissioner to-morrow, with full power to go through the various asylums, and to regulate to their relatives and to local bodies the great numbers of patients who have nothing wrong with them but old age — to put them out of the asylums, where they are a charge upon the general taxpayer — you would soon see that there was no overcrowding at all.

The remarks of the Member for Waiternata on the Wages Protection Bill brought to his feet the panegyrical Gilfedder, who unbosomed himself thualy: ' He (Monk) hurled at honorable members' heads words of tremendous length and of thundering sound. Why, sir, he soared on the wings of eloquence to regions of philosophical speculation, away to the dreamland of romance. He somersaulted from the parapet of his psychological ideal, and dived into the pellucid waters of sociological research. We found him meandering through the labyrinth of his own distorted political conceptions. We found him boxing the evanescent atmosphere, as if he were engaged in a pugilistic engagement with Hamlet's ghost ; and before he had exhausted his vocabulary of polysyllabic expressions he suddenly woke up in the midst of his reverie and found that he had forgotten to say more than half-a-dozen words about the Wages Protection Bill.'

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