JOTTINGS FROM HANSARD.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 4, Issue 353, 5 December 1879, Page 2

JOTTINGS FROM HANSARD.

Mr Wakefield on Consistency.

It is an absolute imposture for the hon. gentleman (Sir George Grey) to come down now and criticise aa he has'done a measure which is far more liberal than any he ever .conceived.,-v'For lhyself, I may say that at every electoral meeting I have attended I have held that the dual property vote should be abolished. I have tried to carry that oul, and should have carried it out, but for the determined opposition of the hon. member for the Thames and hisjcolleagues who brought in the Electoral Bill last year. I despise an hon. member who can come down to this House and pretend that he is the-author of a principle of which he has been the determined opponent in the past. If he wants the country to have a really liberal electoral law let him be consistent and true, and let him not attempt to snatch from those who have been really earnest in their work the fruit of their laboi. [It will hardly surpise those'who know the honorable gentleman to learn that after thiseloquentdenunciation of inconsistency, he carefully voted for the dual property vote.] Mr Saunders on the Ballot. It had been said that, because they had the ballot, they should abolish the public nomination ; but, while he admitted that the ballot was a necessary evil for the protection of people who bad not sufficient public spirit to express their opinions, he trusted there would long be a class of people who would not be afaid to express their opinions, and that the House would give them an opportunity to do so.' They had often heard a great deal about public nominations being opposed to the spirit of the ballot; but the spirit or want of spirit that made the ballot necessary was a thing to deplore and discouraga, not a thing to cultivate and aspire to. Mr Pvke on Numbering Ballot Papers. As an old Returning Officer, he was aware that the object of numbering was to prevent persons putting in ballot-papers which they might have obtained by indirect means, so as to stuff the ballot-box ; and, unless the numbers were put on, that could be done : it had been done in ■ other countries. As to telling how a man had voted, there was no possibility of telling that, unless the Returning Officer turned over every paper when he was counting up the votes at the end of the poll : and he was not likely to do that. There could be no disclosure of the manner in which any elector might have voted. Sir G. Grey ox Liberals. Sir G. Grey said, as the hon. member (Colonel Trimble) wished him to proclaim the truth, he would proclaim the truth. The hon. gentleman had told the House on several occasions that he was one of the most liberal of the Liberals in England. If that were the case, he could no longer wonder that England and Ireland were in their present state of wretchedness. The whole of that-mystery was explained to him at once. Mr Murray on Acclimatization Societies. They had had in the Old Country evidence of the cruel wrongs that might be inflicted upon people by the provisions of the game-laws, and here they should jealously guard themselves against the possibility of such cruel inflictions. He thought the Bill did not go far enough. Every person who owned land ought to» have the right to destroy the vermin which a certain class of people introduced into tin's country. He looked upon those persons who formed 'themselves into acclimatisation societies as instances of the truth of Dr Watts' words, that

Satan finds some mischief still For idle hands to do. Mr Sheehan is Severe. The hon. member for Waikouaiti (Mr M'Lean) says he generally looks at all the papers that are laid on the table. No doubt. He is always looking. lie gives me the impression of a man who would put his ear to a key-hole or look through the chink of a window ; and. I think some of his own friends' will not say that that impression is incorrect. We have heard the Ministry called the " Detective Ministry." Ido not think tbe term was fairly applied, but I certainly do think the hon. member for Waikouaiti should have been in the detective service, because there he would have risen to a. greater eminence than he is likely to rise to m this House. The detective service has lost a valuable officer, and this House has got a most troublesome member. The Hon. Dit. Grace is Didactic. Anybody who is competent to think or to reason upon tlie matter'must see that a triennial Parliament is politically of no advantage to the country, seeing that at any moment the Governor of the colony can grant a dissolution at a time when the common sense of the public in general is distinctly against the policy of such a course. Seeing that we have an outside judge—an august person who is perfectly impartial, and who, as a rule, does not care in the least about the fever of the moment—to decide whether a Parliament lias endured long enough or not, no necessity can exist for a Triennial Parliaments Bill.