LOBBY TALK.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume L, Issue 12121, 30 August 1906, Page 5

LOBBY TALK.

The talk of last night after the House rose from the Budget waxed remarkably warm in the lobbies. I hear there •was murder and sudden death, famine, war, and pestilence all at the service of the Government, tree, gratis, and for nothing. In many places to-day theve io a perceptible cooling. I had a conversation with Mr -Rutherford, and found him somewhat doubtful on the question of endowments, chiefly be^ cause of the palpable insufficiency of those proposed for the purposes Intended. For the rest he admired the new lease, applauded the abolition of tho 999 years' arrangement, and emphatically approved the proposal to limit the holdings to £50,000 unimproved with ten years to conform. He treated the value and the time as meie details, and endorsed the principle as on absolutely right lines. About the payment on capital account up to 90 per cent, he was not quite certain if ho -liked it, but from his reference to the matter it is possible he may after the frank deliverance. It did not astonish one to find many of the wildest of last night's talkers quite too mild for their chiefs, who no longer rely on them for any assault on the Ministerial benches. One of these said.that Governments " have a way with them" which the; average member fails to resist. He 'had discovered, however, early that fn the politics the ' mouth ■was the vent by which the superheated steam found hissing exit into harmless lobbies, and the result of leaving the body of the owner limp but amenable to ministerial suasion.

The Chairmanship qt 'Committee is the object of vigorous whipping against Friday's decision.' Of course, Mr R. Mackenzie is the favourite. This afternoon the House pave itself np to the " sacred right of question," and was Janguid, which was perli-aps lucky, as a more energetic frame of mind might have obtained success for one moro of the 123 attempts to get the management of various departments, •which the questions represented. There was not even energy enough to abolish the new system of bottling questions for on<\ day a- week, and get back to the old style of everybody by the grace of the- Prenrer. The last clause perhaps was too deterrent.