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Wellington Independent, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3916, 2 October 1873, Page 2

The bill introduced by Karaitiana Takamoana for the appointment of a second Native Lands Alienation Commission, which had been on the Order Paper for some weeks past, came on for its second reading last night. Mr Sheehan, in Mr Takamoana's absence, moved that it should be discharged. In doing so, he made a short speech on the subject, but as he spoke wiq.h much more rapidity and much less distinctness than is usual with him, it was imposible to catch a single word that he said, in the gallery. From Mr •M'Lean's reply we gathered that he stated

as one of the reasons for the withdrawing of the bill, that if it were gone on with serious charges would have to be preferred against members of the House. Mr M'Lean very justly condemned the making of any such remark. It was, he considered, a most improper course to pursue to make a vague statement of the kind without saying what the charges were, or against whom they were brought. We understood Mr Sheehan to say, in reply, that in making it, he did not intend his words to be understood as implying that the charges could be sustained. As it was he himself, we imagine, who was about to prefer the charges in question, his words either meant that it had been his intention to make a series of groundless charges, or else they meant nothing at all. If the former was the case, it is perhaps as well that the lion member afterwards thought better of it.