PARNELL PROTESTS

Observer, Volume XVIII, Issue 1023, 6 August 1898, Page 2

PARNELL PROTESTS

A Slap in the Face for Its Member.

What a sorry figure poor Frank Lawry will cut in the Honse when the news reaches Wellington that the Parnell Borough. Council haa unanimously entered its protest against the Private Electric Lighting Bill. Mr Lawry ia the honorable member in charge of the bill, and, in moving the second reading, he asserted that the Parnell Borough Council and also the Auckland City Council were in favour of it. The emphatic repudiation of the measure by both councils places Mr La wry in a very awkward position. It is quite possible he was misinformed when he spoke of the feeling of the Auckland City Council, but how can he explain himBelf with regard to the Parnell Borough

Council and its views on this"queßtion ? He is the member for the district and ought not to plead want of knowledge.

Surely Mr Lawry has not purposely misrepresented the feeling of the local municipality ? We are loth to suspect him of anything of this kind. How then can he explain the flat contradiction of his state ment by the Council's resolution? From whence did Mr Lawry derive his information ?• Did the promoters of the scheme tell him the Parnell Borough Council and the Auckland City Council were in favour of the bill ? If they did, their motive was self-evident and Mr Lawry was '.stuffed.'

Clearly Mr Lawry has either placed himself or has been placed in a false position. Being the member for Parnell, he is endeavouring to force upon the inhabitants of that borough a bill" giving over into the hands of private speculators considerable privileges belonging to the ratepayers, and as one of the arguments why this bill should be passed he has used the statement that the Parnell Borough Council is in favour of the measure. This is not true. The Borough Council has vow unanimously recorded its opposition to the bill. So far as we can Bee, Mr Lawry has no alternative but to establish to the satisfaction of the House the truth of his former statement — and this is impossible — or abandon a measure so distasteful to his constituents and so hostile to their interests.