THE SESSION.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1320, 20 August 1886, Page 3

THE SESSION.

After a somewhat unique and eventful history, extending over nearly fourteen weeks, the third session of

the ninth Parliament of the colony was yesterday brought to a close. It has been maiked by several very disagreeable episodes, and has been characterised throughout by a good deal of parly bitterness, which augurs a querulous old age, and which will lead to its demise next year being regarded with a feeling of relief and satisfaction. It has, too, been an unusually talkative one, as evidenced by the bulk of Hansard, and while there has, notwithstanding, been a good deal of very useful work accomplished, much has been left undone which it was fondly hoped would have been this year carried out. But dc mortuis nil nisi bonurn, and let us see, therefore, what can be said on the credit side. Despite all opposition and the utmost efforts of those who desired to kill the East and West Coast Railway scheme, the Bill, which ratifies the contract with the London Company has been passed, and the work it authorises is now on the eve of commencement, and there is every reason to hope that a few years will see it carried to completion, and a great impetus given to the progress of Canterbury and the West Coast, Quite a group of local government measures have been passed, including the Counties Act, Municipal Corporalions Act, Local Bodies Loans Act, and Government Loan to Local Bodies Act, all calculated to extend the powers of local administration, and to assist in the

development of the resources ol the country. Much Ins also been done towards improving the machinery for the administration of hospitals and charitable aid, though we regret that a grievance under which this locality suffers failed to obtain redress despite the best efforts of our local represenl; lives. The Government Life Assurance Department has been again very properly brought under the direct control of Parliament, and a measure for the reform of the Civil Service has been placed upon the statute book. Authority has been given for the establishment of a parcels post, and the Defence and Police have been placed on a bitter footing. The whole system of the administration of Native lands has been revolutionised, a slfip put to the spoiling qf the Native race and the aggregation of enormous estates in the hands of the Pakeha land sharks. Our mining laws have been revised and consolidated by the Mines Act, Mining Act, and Coal

Mines Act, and measures have been

passed for the amendment of the laws relating to the management of the Sheep Departments and the sup-

pression of that plague of sheepowners, the rabbit nuisance. Then, in the Department of Justice, we have a most merciful measure placed on the statute book in the shape of the First Offenders Act, the provisions of which we have detailed in a previous article; and, lastly, provision has been made, by the new loan sanctioned, for carrying on with reasonable rapidity the construction of the various railway works throughout the colony and their completion to points at which they may fairly be expected to yield paying results. Altogether, this is a good record of work done, and had it not been for the regrettable fact that nothing has been accomplished (despite numerous efforts) to remove the difficulties which stand in the way of the settlement of tfye land, we should be entirely satisfied. As tt ig, however, notwithstanding its excellent record in other respects, the session of iBS6 must be regarded as in this most important particular a grievously disappointing one.— Mail,