IN THE HOUSE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7270, 16 September 1891, Page 3

IN THE HOUSE.

THE AGENT-GENERALSHIP.

MAIL SERVICES. PAYMENT OF MEMBERS.

[from our own correspondent.]

WELLINGTON, Sept. 15.

The sensation in the afternoon is the announcement of the Agent-Generalship. It is made by the Premier in a few graceful words. Mr Perceval is the name selected for filling up the blank which has been the subject of so much fruitless guessing and so much vain questioning during the last few months. The leader of the Opposition follows the Premier with guarded compliment. He would have preferred a man of Cabinet experience, but he admits that Mr Perceval, though young, ia a capable and improving man. The curtain descends on the little drama, and everybody wants to know who ia to be

CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES, and who is to be the new member for Christchurch. The latter question is by common consent relegated to Christchurch and to a more distant future. The subject of immediate interest is the Chairmanship. In a few days we shall know, for it is understood that the matter will be arranged before the session closes. Aa indication is afforded a little later on by Mr Fish being moved into the chair for the San Francisco resolution. The same prelude took place in Mr Perceval's case, we remember. Before the San Francisco mail comeß in we have

ANOTHER SENSATION. This time it is a matter of money. Messrs Rees and Jackson Palmer have written to Mr Speaker about the honorarium in the present year, and Mr Speaker reads their little effusion. The House rather gasps (pleasurably P) at the idea of the possibility of knocking another .£SO out of the honorarium. The only result apparent is a skirmish between Mr Buckland and Mr Jackson Palmer, who refers to his learned friend with great scorn as "my junior at the Bar." Mr Palmer is not going to be dictated to in matters of such overwhelming importance by his junior at the bar. The House xewards the rally by the loudest roar of laughter of the session. Then we have. THE FINAL MOVE. Of the session, the Premier serving the best coals, and the engineer turning on his valves full bore. In other words, the Standing Orders are suspended. Then it is that Mr Fish takes the Chairmanship of Committees, and we are plunged into

THE BAN FEANCIBCO HAIL Contract. Dinner comes and goes, the House assembles again, and we have a debate of considerable liveliness. We hear much about the Union Company, for which institution Mr Taylor makes a plea, meaning fair play. We hear a good deal also about the claims of Wellington to be the port of call, Captain Eussell putting them strongly and well. Mr Duthie follows, but the Minister cannot agree to the alteration proposed by the Captain, and is applauded seriously by Mr Smith, who is applauded by the House ironically. Mr Fisher is judicious, thinking that the better part to choose is division between Wellington and Auckland. Mr Shera appreciates his generosity, and intimates that he will be prepared to reciprocate when Mr Fisher can bring Wellington as near to San Francisco as Auckland is. Auckland, he says in his precise way, is a day and a half nearer, and someone remarking "two dayß," Mr Shera accepts the correction. Division follows, and there is much talking. Eventually, at half-past nine the resolutions are carried in their original form. After the FriBCO mail service debate

WE DROP INTO THE COUNCIL,

in the hope of hearing them discuss the Payment of Members Bill. We find them discussing stamps. They make wry faceß, but they swallow the stamps, and go to supper to gather strength to cope with the mammon of iniquity. After supper the mammon of iniquity puts Mr Miller to the blush of shame, and impels him to make an amendment which will have the effect of laying the Bill aside. He speaks with great care and Magisterial deliberation. The Council discusses the amendment temperately and freely, with considerable tenderness for the feelings of "another place." Having discussed, the Council adjourns the debate, ostensibly to study the effect of the amendment. As the amendment proposes readiness to give the denizens of another place what they want, provided they do not aßk the Council to participate in the unholy meal, the adjournment appears to be as much for the consideration of another place as for that of the Council. Then we have

THE PENNY POST, which Mr Pharazyn wants executed without benefit of clergy, but the Council, with the exception of a few critical members, favours the penny post handsomely, and debates it in a style vastly superior to that of " another place." In the course of the said debate, Mr Acland tells ua more about the course of Sir Rowland Hill's famous reform in a few words in his modest way, than the combined contents of "another place " did a few nights ago. The Council sits on Mr Pharazyn, and embraces the penny post. A few little Bills fill up the time till midnight, when the Council adjourns.