PARLIAMENTARY NEWS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3113, 20 June 1881, Page 3

PARLIAMENTARY NEWS.

(From our Exchanges) On August 11 last the Legislative Council, on the motion of the Hon. J.N. Wilson, ordered a return of all moneys paid by the colony to Sir J. Vogel from his taking? office in 1869 to May, 1880. This return was laid on tbe table yesterday, and shows the total amount, including travelling allowances, received by the late Agent-General to have been £27,193 16s Id.

A deputation of the representatives of local bodies who attended the recent conference waited upon the Premier and presented the resolutions which had been agreed to. Mr Hdll after stating that the Government had already promised to make some more adequate provision, and that country districts had not a better friend than he was, promised that the proposals of the conference should be carefully considered.

Mr Hutchison while deprecating any encouragement to the presentation of of petitions on frivolous grounds, holds that all petitions of real interest should be well and carefully considered, and he said he had reason to suppose that the Petitions Committees from time to time appointed hardly realteed all the House and the country exp2cted. There was, in fact, at times a perfunctory discharge of duties. He recommended that all petitions should be read in tbe House, so that every member might know the nature of the business tbe Petitions Committee had to deal with, and he condemned as unsatisfactory the too frequent referring of petitions to the Government for consideration—a practice which seldom leads to any satisfactory results. In proof of this he cited eeveral instances in which petitions so referred to the Government had been left unheeded.

The Hon. J. N. Wilson, in the Legislative Council, said that when the work of the Judicature Commission (of which he was a member) was before the Council, it would be seen a very great reform had been begun, and he earnestly hopd Government would press on the consequent legislation this c ossioD. Mr Chamberlain has moved for a return of all bonuses offered, with detailed information as to names, amounts, places and persons. He said as at the approaching election this question would be a large one, all information was desirable. Motion carried.

The Hon. Colonel Brett, in speaking to the Address in Reply, said in reference to the Chinese Immigration Bill tbat | the Chinese should be allowed to have the entr sto this country. If we could go to China, why not vice versa ? The world was wide enough for all. We had j done a monstrous injustice 25 years ago j in making them import a drug which was undermining their constitutions, and | afterwards forcing them into a war about it. And now we proposed to keep them I out of the country. They were equally honest as Englishmen, and far better workmen, and you got the value of your money from them. The Bill for abolishing the custom of entail, and preventing tying up of lands, is not yet quite ready ; it is very shortonly about half-a-dozen clauses. It provides tbat no land shall be rendered inalienable, excepting during the minority of an heir : while in the case of trustee lands, there is provision for reinvestment of funds derived from the proceeds of the sale of land, in accordanse with the object of the trust. Among the papers laid before Parliament to-day is a memorandum by the Secretary of Crown Lands to the Commissioner of Crown Lands, Dunedin,. setting forth the intention of the Government regarding the Waste Land of Otago, the leases of which expire in 1883, about which Sir George Grey and Mr Pyke, and others made so much. The Government have carefully considered the course to be adopted to promote the future occupation of the land included in these leases, and the manner most likely to induce beneficial settlement of the country. There are seventy-one runs, having an area of 2,681,000 acres, of which half is under 2000 feet high, and as garden fruit, wheat, oats, barley, and rdbt crops have been grown up to that height, it is announced that all land to this height is safe for stock, and where the soil is good, may be deemed agricultural. This is to be laid off in farms of suitable size, higher altitude being proDortionately increased so as to include varieties of country in the same block. Hundreds are to be declared, and reserves made for railways, roads, bush, coal, &c.