PARLIAMENTARY ITEMS.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 4, Issue 336, 7 October 1879, Page 2

PARLIAMENTARY ITEMS.

A little scene occurred in the House of Representatives on Thursday. Mr Hall, referring to a letter which had appeared in a Wellington paper that morning, " signed by a person calling himself J. C. Brown," characterized the statement therein contained as "an absolute, unblushing, unmitigated falsehood." Mr Brown retorted that he could prove the charge before a select committee, and styled the Leader of the Opposition a•• Johnny Allsorts." This expression he was promptly called upon to withdraw, and did withdraw accordingly. After a few more remarks the matter dropped, and the want of confidence debate proceeded with its usual ponderosity. On Friday Mr Brown and three Native members spoke, after which the Hon. J. Sheehan said, with reference to what had fallen from one of the latter, that he could come to no other conclusion than that the Leader of the Opposition had, for party purposes, made promises to the Maoris he never could, nor yet intended to fulfil. In concluding, Mr Sheehan said—*' tie would assure the House that they would be no party to a coalition Government. _ If defeated they would go out and abide their time. They would be prepared to stand or fall by their party. They would simply take their defeat. The Opposition might win the day by a vote or two ; if so, they would find that their troubles would only then begin. They were prepared on their side of the House to go to a vote at once,, and would advise those on his side not to speak any more." Dr Wallis rose amid cries of " divide," which, he said, confirmed him in his deterniinatian to address the House. -Ho said if they carried out the Liberal measures they were returned to carry out, a dissolution would have to take place at the end of this session. He charged the Opposition with an attempt to defeat that purpose. If the amendment was carried, he predicted that not one of the measures put forward in the speech would be carried, but on the contrary the Legislature of the country would revert again to the slow groove in which it had so long run. The question was then put-—" That the amendment stand part of the question," when there voted for the ayes 43, and for the noes 41. .

The following is the division list :— Ayes—43. Noes—4l. Messrs Adams Messrs Allwright Atkinson Andrews Bain Ballanco Beetham Barron Bowen Bunny Bryce Colbeck Dick De Lautour Driver Finn Fulton Fisher, J. B. Gibbs Fisher, J. T. Hall George Hirst Gisborne Hursthouse Sir G. Grey Johnston Messrs Hamlin Kelly Harris Kenny Hislop Levin Hurst Mason Hutchison Masters Ireland M'Caughan Lundon M'Lean Macandrew Moorhouse . M'Donald Murray Montgomery Oliver Moss Ormond Reeves Pitt Reid , Pyke ...... Seddon Richmond Shanks I Rolleston Sheehan ■ Russell Shephard j Saunders . Shrimski Seyrriour Speight I Stevens Swanson Stewart Tainui Studholine Tawhai Sutton Te Wheoro Tamoana Thomson Trimble Tole Wakefield Turnbull Whitaker Wallia Whyte Wood Willis Wright Pairs. Aye—Brandon No—Brown. The address, as amended, was then put and adopted, and on the motion of Sir George Grey, the House adjourned till Tuesday.