WELLINGTON NEWS.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXI, Issue 3665, 19 October 1897, Page 4

WELLINGTON NEWS.

(OWN CORRESPONDENT) DEARLY BOUGHT VOTES. The Sight Honorable Seddoo claims 46 votes against 28 members in the Opposition. Such was his boast in the House yesterday, but he included the Left Wing among his followers, and the leader of that unknown quantity, Mr Pirani, declined to state the strength of the malcontent Liberals, preferring as he said, to reserve the information for future use "Since'yesterday Mr Sligo’s return by 980 of a majority has acted like a wet blanket on Ministers’ bluster, and a vigorous set to over the constitution of the sessional committees resulted in a complete discomfiture of the Premier, who is now face to face with a choice of giving way to the Opposition, or of carrying on the ■estiou without any committees at all. WhktL it costs to keep his majority intact can only be judged by auch accidental evidence as can be collected from the returns. A great batch of these were issued to-day, among them being the report of the Commission od private benefit societies, which nrgndfd Messrs George Fisher amb'Majpr Btpward M’s.H.H., and JTy'c, l’regear with recreation at rtaptatjfya rate for three months duriiijji tW receas. The printing of jwTfeturu cost £IBB 3s, the costf preparation is not stated, and the the Commission itself is set dowtpn the Batimatas at £sso—say a t<tUW||Bßoo, and the conclusion, this Liberals arrived at was thatithipeet thing to do was to leave welljjaaWpJa poring ovar the 295 pages of this useleijfl Seddoniau furniture it TrakdJrp that- this Commission sat and toWr-endence on 24 days, so that each day those patriots metafor work cost the State £7 10b each, without counting the printing, etc. There is a law in existence which forbids any member of Parliament from drawing more than one guinea per day as travelling allowance*, but that was a Statute made for and observed by the Conservatives, and may be more honoured in the breach -df k by patriots of the Steward and Fisher type. As for Mr Tregear, poor fellow, his salary as secretwyof the Labour department is only £350 a year, and as he spends most of his time in preparing dictionaries of the gibberish of the remote Pacific Island savages and leaves the Labour department to his subordinate clerks, it must be owned that he deserves commiseration rather than censure for having kept company with the patriots from May 18th to July 6th. Another expensive supporter, Mr Larnach, who has been mollified by the carriage drive to his mansion, costing £6OO, a telephone service, and a trip to Queensland which is described in the Estimates of the Colonial Secretary's department thus : —“ Salary, Expert Meadows, freight on exhibits and expenses, Queensland exhibition £1000.” When Expert Meadows left New Zealand, he was called “ private secretary to the commissioner, the Hon W. J. Larnach," and a special pamphlet was published by the mines department to be distributed broadcast with a view of attracting Queensland capital to this colony, but so far not even an enquiry has been made for German syndicate or Ziman scrip, and all we have had for the £IOOO ia the knowledge that the Hon Mr Larnach, bis secretary, and an apple grown named Grapes had a good Jt .jrt, Brisbane. But -tmr £IOOO and the £550 among the Fisher-Steward combination pales into insignificance 1 when »*mpared with what the Bight - Honorable himself soooped. His little - trip tor Australia with two private , secretaries is charged at £5lB. The London trixa £1759, bis salary £IOOO , —total on Estimates £3268. What is not on ‘the Estimates !b salary on 1 Assets Board £230. Fees on Anglo- t German Syndicate and other mining monopolies unknown- Cab hire and * allowances bidden away in contin- 1 a votes also unknown, and it is r _r to be expected that all the persnaaive powers of the Opposition will extract the information- But 5

without going any further- than- the instances above quoted, it mast be (nrnpd that a working mau’s Government contrives to divide the spoils to the viators in a manner that - leaves much to be desired—for the working man himselfi..,/.!