A TEMPORARY ASSEMBLY.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 69, 14 December 1907, Page 6

A TEMPORARY ASSEMBLY.

A suggestion has been mado by:.certain: Departmental officers ,jn : Wellington that Parliament next session could very well meet in tho remnant of tho Parliamentary Buildings. ! Upstairs three rooms • at least could he made habitable as committee rooms, and on tho ground floor the suite of rooms occupied' by . the Premier could be similarly' fixed up. This would provide a certain amount-of accommodation, and the large upstairs library room would,afford ample room for a meeting place for the.House of Representatives, and' the newspaper, room below "could bo similarly. used by the Legislative Council. Possibly other accommodation,' if necessary, could be cheaply .and temporarily provided. Any inconvenience, buffered by th'osey arrangements would, if is' contended, be considerably preferable to meeting in the Drill Hall or in the Town' Hall, on account of ,th'e distance the. latter.are from, the Departmental buildings, upon : which bothHouses will now have to draw very considerably,' because of the. documents that have been lost. Very often, too, Supplementary Order Papers containing amendments are required from tho Printing Office at very short notice, and documents also frequently have to bo hurried across for alteration to prevent delays in.tho Chambers, and it is thus very desirable that the place of meeting should bo clo'so to the Printing 'Office. Probably, also, the expense of this make-shift provision will be less.- A similar suggestion to this has emanated from Mr. James Allen, member for Bruce. : .

Yesterday morning the Chief Librarian, Mr. C., Wilson,' found under a heap of debris the smouldering remains of a pile of. old and treasured library books. • The- books; which had. been missing for some years, consis';ed of reports of the old New Zealand Company, and historical' works. AH were' hopelessly damaged. ,

■ Superintendent Hugo .has.despatched the following, telegram, to the Premier Your kind' telegram was read to the members of thoFiro Brigade and Fire Police alroU-call, and your recognition of their efforts at ,tho late disastrous fire was-much appreciated. They deeply, regret that their efforts were not more successful". : • • '•■• •'■■••.'.