Political Paroxysms.

Observer, Volume XXVII, Issue 48, 17 August 1907, Page 22

Political Paroxysms.

MAN : lhe telephone should be extended further into the backblocks, so as to make life more bearable there. When a young man is away twenty miles into the backblocks, how nice it iB to be able to ring up his sweetheart in the town. It relieves him of a great deal of anxiety, and may prevent him from going to the bad.

The Hon. Mr Scotland : When Sir John Campbell — Dr Campbell, I think he was then — gave Cornwall Park to Auckland, I do not know whether it was the same paper or the opposition paper, but one of them compared his act to the acts of the Messiah. To my mind, tbat comparison bordered upon blasphemy. And these, and other papers like them, pose as educators of the rising generation.

IVlr Stallworthy : A little while ago we had an association in this colony called the National Association. That association possessed some power in the country until people began to call it the " National A b p," and tbe result was that before long the association went out of existence. Then we have that same association deeming it wise to call itself the Farmers' Union.

Mr Rutherford : It was oaly the other day that I was walking down Lambton Quay and saw four little slant -eyed, whitey- brown steps-and-stairs enter a Chinese fruiterer's shop, showing that the cradle had been in f requen t use.

Mr Remington : T took the opportunity during the tirae of the Exhibition to travel round the South Island and to see something of what is there, and I say that of all the white elephants in the way of railways the Otago Central is the biggest of the lot.

Mr Ngata: Witchcraft was stopped by burning at the stake ; you would not allow that now. But you are going to send them to gaol instead ; and ifyou send a tohunga to gaol at the wrong time, instead of suppressing him, you will make him a greater nuisance than ever. • • •

Mr W. Fraser : We are told about the large number of applicants who go to the ballot for some of the sections that are put up. What does that prove? I say that the largest por- > tion of these applicants consist of people who put in their applications just in exactly the same way as they would take tickets on Tattersall's sweep.

Mr Buddo : This colony has been called a place for experimental legislation. 1 am in sympathy with a well-known writer in Australia who stated he was sorry they could not make their colony another place for experimental legislation if New Zealand's prosperity would follow.

Mr Massey : Let me suggest that " Ready to run " is a suitable motto for . the Government, and that a weathercock should be their crest ; and then I think that, in the words of the honourable member for Auckland, they will have an outfit which will suit them right down to the ground. * • *

Mr Hornsby : I saw an old man working in the Christchurch goodsshed who has been a casual for twentyfour years, and presently he will be too old to work, and what is he to do? God help him. Before he is sixty-five years old he will have to vy take charitable aid if he cannot work any longer at the barrow until he arrives at that stage when -he can get y ; an old-age pension.

Mr Fraser : I have been in a town of importance in its population and in its potentialities, and I have found that injthe hotels you could not buy a bottle of three-star brandy, because the stock had run dry owing to the demands of the Maoris upon the hotelkeepers.

Mr J. Allen : There is a change of front. The honourable gentleman (Mr McNab) is not wearing the same political clothes he wore last year. He has on somebody else's trousers, somebody else's shirt. He may have his own coat still— his many-coloured coat — but he is not the man he was.

Mr Heke : Tohungaism of the kind that Parliament intends to suppress amongst tbe Maoris generally ends up in the male or female tohunga taking from his or her followers a nice young woman or a nice young man. Similarly, in the ca^e of the pakeha tohunga, it always ends up in a wahine.

Mr Major : What other than tohungas are the people who are foisting quack medicines upon the people — medicines which are sold at extortionate prices, such as 4s 6d and 5s 6d a bottle, though, as the honourable member showed,- the cost of the mixture is not more than JJd, and when costing 2d or 3d they contain a certain amount of an alcoholic mixture..

Mr Poland : If the European wishes to compete with the Chinaman he must do as the Chinaman does — he must give up all his domestic relations, he must be content to sleep under the counter or among his vegetables, and he must sink several degrees in civilisation.

Mr Mas.-ey : I have often noticed, Sir, that it is hazardous for a lawyer to quote Scripture, because he never quotes it aorrectly, or he quotes only what suits hiiu. He says : " They will grow and flourish like a green bay-iree." What is the next sentence ? The following sentence is "But he passed away, and lo he was not."

Mr Davey : It seems rather hard that a Minister of the Crown cannot be laid up even for a day or so without some pilot balloon being sent forth, and we find nearly every newspaper in the colony and many members of the House speculating as to who shall be the next Minister appointed.

Mr Wilford : It is a curious thing that in this land, a fair land that every New Zealander iB proud of — and I am a New Zealander — it is a curious thing how some men who have obtained all they own here decry the fame of this colony, and are always crying stinking fish ; they cannot be trying to uplift the fame of the colony, but must be attempting to defame it.

Sir Joseph Ward : I am sorry that the San Francisco service had to be abandoned, because, although that service did not fly the British flag, it flies the American flag — a cosmopolitan flag representing many millions of an English-speaking community — and though, as a matter ot choice, I should infinitely have preferred to see an allred route with the British flag flying, especially, between tbis country and the Old Land, I am sensible of the great convenience that the mail and passenger service across the American Continent has been for so many years to the people of tbis country.