PARLIAMENTARY NEWS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XVI, Issue 953, 7 July 1883, Page 3

PARLIAMENTARY NEWS.

[By Telegraph.] (From a Gorrespoiident.) Wellington, July 6th. Mr Moss was yesterday elected Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee.

From the sixth annual report of the Minister of Education, just presented to Parliament, it appears that the total working average in daily attendance of scholars throughout the Colony for the fonrth quarter of last year was 35,909 males, and 32,379 females". The total working average for the whole year was 66,145, showing an increase of 2,410 during the year.

In reference to a deputation of members who are going to wait on the Minister of Public Works in regard to the Christchnrch and West Coast railway, I hear that Government will most likely comply with the resolution. In the House last night, the Bankruptcy Bill was discussed in Committee. Four or five lawyers, and one or two mercantile representatives (charged with special recommendations from Chambers of Commerce) and a few conscientious members, who always attend to everything, formed the Committee of the whole House, which arranged to get through 'he first forty-one clauses of the Bill. Mr Barron, who has had large retail business experience in Dunedin, declared emphatically that the honest, cartful trader did not require any bankruptcy law and derived no real protection fro ti such law ; while Mr Fish, who is supposed to be the mercantile representative of Dunedin, as emphatically declared that it would be impossible to carry on trade without such a law. Shortly after midnight, the Committee adjourned. To-nighc the Bill will be further considered.

This afternoon, Mr George moved the adjournment of the House in order to bring before the notice of the Speaker a paragraph appearing in the Dunedin "Temperance Record," which alleged that some honorable members ate and drank of the best at Bellamy's, but forgot to pay their accounts. He denied the truth of the statement, and said that the only account which had been left unpaid was a sum of £6, owing by a member who had died during the recess. Mr Pyke seconded the motion, and said the paragraph in question reflected upon the whole Press of the Colony. The question was eventually allowed to drop.

Mr J. C. Brown's Drainage of Mines Bill is to be read with the Mines Act, 1877, clauses 71 to 81 of which it repeals. Owners of machines for raising water for mines are entitled to receive contributions from mine-owners, whose mines may be in any way benefited by the use of such machine, after due'notice has been given, and should the claim be disputed, they can make an application to the Warden's Court to enforce it. The Bill next provides the procedure in the Warden's Court for enforcing the claim : should a machine-owner intend to discontinue the drainage of his mine, he must give three months' notice, but he is not liable for drainage through the breaking of his machine, provided that all due diligence be exercised in repairing such.