PARLIAMENTARY. (D. S. Cross Special Correspondent.) Wellington, Saturday.

Waikato Times, Volume VII, Issue 350, 11 August 1874, Page 2

PARLIAMENTARY. (D. S. Cross Special Correspondent.) Wellington, Saturday.

j lhe Hon Donald McLean has been knighted. The elevation is spoken of by all parties as wellmerited, and as a proper lecognition of his earnest and useful services to the colony. A return to order, on Mr Liickie's motion, regarding the lea&e of land in Hawke's Bay to Mr Alfred Cox, shows that the land consists of 25,000 acres, being the south part of the Waitara block, in the Waikare-Mohaka district. The tenure is seven yeai-3 from February, 1872, at an annual rent of £52 Is Bd, equal to a half-penny an acre. A conrlidition is fixed on the lessee not to assign or sublet without consent in writing. The lessors are able to put an end to the lease on six months' notice, and no compensation is to be given for improvements at the end of the lea.se. There is no covenant for title or to quit enjoyment, or any covenant whatever which can be employed against the .lessor. There is no right of purchase. Tims, it will be seen, unless there is some other land, there is not much in the outcry about Cox's lease. ' '.' - • , Mr T. B, Gillies moved lately for letters of Thomas Ball, of Mongonui, relative to a letter of Hyde Harold Fenton, J.P., Mongonui, published m the journals hist year. Ball's letter charges Fenton with having insidiously imported very offensive matters in reference to Ball as a magistrate in the conduct of the case Fenton v. Freer in the Magistrate's Court. Mr Ball says Fenton has drawn largely on his imagination for the insinuations and opinions he has reported j and he expresses surprise and regret that Government had been made the medium for giving currency to such scurrility without aStt'inquiiy or affording the party concerned an opportunity of defence. If, he says, Government chooses ±o gmnt unsuccessful litigants on the commission of the peace, facilities for giving publicity for vindictive insolence against their compeers, to which they refer their complaints, then no man of konoi will care to hold the commission of the peace. I think Mr Ball is perfectly right, and Mi- Fenton considerably wrong. Tho Immigration and Public Works Loan Bill provides for the the issue of debentures not exceeding .'four millions, interest not to exceed 6 per cent., on the same terms as in former Acts. The other provisions contain the usual technical arrangements regarding the disposal of debentures. The money to be applied as per scedule thus :— Railways authorised by Assembly, £3,000,000 ; public works under Immigration mid Public Works Act, 1870, and on goldiields, £500,000 ; roads under same Act, and S"' Novth Ww *l. i immigration, £500 000 ; Public Works building., telegraph lines and other purnotses, .€300,000.

Ti.c privilege silKui' is generally ooatucL'rixl a gieat farce. Both Houses would have been in a pretty predicament h:ul not Judge Ward a -.lied Mr Luckie to give up his name. Mr Luckie refused to do so to the commiti oo on the firs!, day he appeared. Judge Waul heard of tins, and then, to save cum plication, told him to give up his name, but for that Mr LucVie would have peisisted in refusing, and the committee have power to compel or to punish. There would have followed the sergeant-at-arins, confinement, fine, or sonic tiling else equally absurd in view of the character of the so-called offence ; and there wou'd have been a discussion in the House, and csnsuve in the Press, and general laughter at the pretentious privileges which the Standing Orders assert. The whole thing ending in nothing but general laughter, winch, in effect, was the result in the present case. As the editor of the Tribune said to the committee the sooner the Standing Orders are changed the better.- The Post to-night censures the Speaker for causing a member tv withdraw without also clearing the galleries of strangers.