The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 26, 1870.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2098, 26 January 1870, Page 2

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 26, 1870.

Those who imagine that th&timc of our representatives in Council assembled at Wellington was spent in talk only last session, would look with amazement at the record of the proceedings in the House of Representatives, just received. It is a large volume of nearly

three hundred pages, and not very attractive reading. The curt, pithy manner in which the most elaborate debates are disposed of, forms but an index to the Hansard that tells of the elaborate reasonings, the party fights, the clash of opinions that preceded the recorded decision —“ and so it passed “ in the negative ; or, “ Ordered — “ That the Clerk do carry the Bill to “ the Legislative Council, and desire “ their concurrence.” But, long and well contested as were many of the debates, they form but a small part of the business of the House. The first records of the volume are the petitions presented, of which during the Session there were upwards of eighty. In looking over the notes telling of the manner in which they were dealt with, one cannot help being struck with the amount of labor thrown upon the particular Committee to which the consideration of them was remitted. Many of them perhaps might be disposed of after very brief consideration; for on the face of them the prayers were such as could not be entertained. Many a man thinks he has a grievance that ought to be redressed by the Legislature, who cannot substantiate a single allegation entitling his case to public consi deration. Buthe has the rightof petition, and if there is an appearance of grievance that shadowy claim has to be investigated, and the usual routine of reporting to the House has to be observed. No one certainly would sit down to read the journal for amusement, although a lively imagination glancing over the long list of petitions and the abstract of their prayers, might find interest in speculating upon the hopes, aspirations, heart-sickenings, and disappointments, that have led to the appeals made to the Legislature for redress, relief or help. First in the list stands Mr Busby, whose name as a petitioner has become as familiar as a household word. He was very quietly disposed of, for the Committee had no suggestions to offer respecting his petition. Then follow petitions on a vast variety of subjects. The settlers of Raglan, and Waipa wanted a road through their district: the people of Nelson South West Goldfields, tired of their connection with the Province, wished their district to be made a county; the public Bonded Store proprietors of Dunedin prayed that no more licenses should be issued to private Bonded Stores. The Committee on that petition report that they “ cannot recommend the House “ to suspend or alter the provisions of “ the Bonded Warehouse Duty Act of “ 1866.” Then follow several petitions from various places—from Auckland, Dunedin, Port Chalmers, Taieri, Oamaru, Hampden and Moeraki, praying that “HenrySmythibs may be exempted from the pains and penalties of the “ Law Practitioners Act, 1866.” Many of our readers signed that petition. Some of them perhaps may have wondered how the matter was dealt with, should they at odd moments recall to mind having done so. The matter came before the Committee two or three times. The first mention of it is under date 15th June, when they reported, “ The Committee are of opinion that “ if Mr Henry Smythies deems him- “ self aggrieved by the decision of any “ Judge of the Supreme Court, he “ should appeal, under the provisions “of the ‘ Court of Appeal Act, 1862,’ “ and consequently the Committee do “ not deem it within their province to “ offer to the House any suggestion “ upon the subject matter of the peti- “ tion.” On the 25th June the case was again considered and a similar answer was returned. The decision was rendered more conclusive in the matter of the petition of nineteen members of “ the Legal Profession practis- “ ing in Otago,” when the Committee reported that they had no suggestions to offer with regard to the repeal of the third section of the “ Law Practitioners “ Act Amendment Act, 1566.” It would be almost as dry reading as the record itself to go through the whole list of petitions and the decisions upon them. There were petitions from sufferers by Hau-hau raids, among whom was one on behalf of J axes Wilson, the boy who escaped, the sole survivor of the family at the Poverty Bay massacre. He has very properly become the nursling of the Colony, and until he is eighteen yearsof age it was recommended fifty pounds a year should be allowed him, . and that one hundred acres of land should be selected for him, as near as possible to the spot where hm family was massacred, with the condition attached, that it shall be inalienable until the year 1900. Then there were petitions for local self-government, for the abolition of provincial institutions, for freeing special districts from the thraldom of provincialism and giving the inhabitants liberty to spend their own money in their own way; for rectifying errors in Crown grants j for enquiries into educational systems ; one, from a lady in this Province who thought herself aggrieved by a decision of Mr Justice Richmond, in a case where her husband, while drunk, had parted with his Land Order to another.

It may be remarked en passant that the Committee snubbed the member on whose recommendation the petition was remitted to them by saying, “The “ Committee are of opinion that the “ petition should not have been received “ by the House, and that it should not “ be allowed to lie upon the table.” It may not be uninteresting to notice that, notwithstanding the averments in the recent debates of the right of the people of the Province to deal with the waste lands, there are those in it who claim the right to go to the General Assembly, and ask that Assembly to over ride the decisions of the Provincial Council. It appears that Mr E. V. Eggers, and thirty-four others, differed in opinion from the Council, and prayed that 60,000 acres proposed by resolution arrived at June 4th, 1869, to be withdrawn from the Goldfields and proclaimed a Hundred, should not be so withdrawn. And another set of petitioners numbering forty-nine, complained that tho Provincial Council had “ only declared Hundreds ” on the runs of Messrs Roberts and M'Kellar whereas they wanted them on the runs of Mesrrs Logan and MTCenzie also. As a matter of course their petitions were referred to the Waste Lands Committee. There are other petitions of interest which, with other proceedings, may hereafter come under review.