PARLIAMENT.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2689, 29 September 1871, Page 2

PARLIAMENT.

(from our own correspondent.) Wellinglon, Sept. 29. The Otago Waste Lands Bill discussion came on last night, the debate being adjourned at half-past one a.m, to-day. Mr Yogel made a telling speech, in which he exposed the conduct of the Reid land party. Mr Thomson followed with a wishy-washy speech in favor of the Bill. Mr Stafford intimated that he would support the second reading, but would not give his sanction to the passing of the Bill unless it was materially altered in Committee. Mr Bathgate was furious, because the Attorney General’s opinion was to the effect that the Bill was unintelligible. Mr Haughton stated that the existing laws had been proved to work well, when honestly administered, Messrs Fitzherbert and Reeves consent to the second reading, but the Canterbury men generally are strongly opposed to the measure. Mr Yogel has given notice to move on Tuesday—That the following duties be charged :—Grain and pulse, per lOOlbs, 9d ; grain and pulse, prepared or manufactured per lOOlbs, Is; rice, per cwt, 3s ; timber, sawn, 100 feet superficial, 2s ; shingles and laths, per 1000, 2s ; palings, per 100, 2s; rails, per 100, 4s ; posts, per 100, Ba. (FROM ANOTHER CORRESPONDENT.) Wellington, September 29. Mr Stafford tore the Otago Land Bill to pieces. He said he would vote for the second reading, but it would have to be altered materially in committee before he would vote for its passing, Messrs Webster and others were disgusted, and left the Opposition. An offer was made to Mr Geo, M'Lean to join the Opposition, and they would throw out the Bill, but he refused. The Government is considered to be much stronger since Mr Gisborne made his statement. The sale of the 50,000 acre block to Mr Clarke by the Waste Land Board is making a great sensation here. MR SMYTIIIES’S CASK. On the 20th, Mr Smythies was heard at the bar of the House in favor of his appeal for the amendment of the Law Practitioners Act of 1866, by which he bad been excluded from practising his profession as a barrister in the law courts of New Zealand. Mr Smythies’s speech lasted two hours and a half, the greater part of which time he expended in a refutation of the charge on which he was convicted in 1849. Some exceedingly important evidence, which was procured in England last year by Mr Smythies’s son, who went home for the purpose, was produced at the bar by Mr Smythies. This was the testimony of a person who was an important, if not the most important, witness for the Crown at- the trial—one Miles, who now affirmed, in 1870, the very reverse of what he stated at the trial in 1849, alleging as a reason for his conduct, that James, the partner and prosecutor of Smythies, offered him L4OO if he would

give evidence against him at the trial. At the taking of the affirmation, the question was put, “Were you bribed to give false evidence ? ” and Miles answered tnat he was. This statement was taken in the presence of witnesses, one of whom was Mr Geo. E. West, music-seller, of Dunedin. After narrating the facts of his case, Mr Smythies showed that the Act of 12 Geo, L, upon the authority of which the Colonial Act of 1866, making in p-.nal for any solicitor convicted of forgery to practise in New Zealand, was framed, did not prevent a solicitor who had been convicted of forgery, from practising, and that Mr S. could practise in England if he thought fit, and he read two opinions of English counsel, Mr James, Q.C., and Mr Cleave, to that effect, and he stated that the Attorney-General of England had also advised that the Act would not bo put in force to prevent a solicitor practising in England. He also showed that an application which he had made to the Home Government for a pardon had been refused solely on account of the Colonial Act. Mr Smyth ies’s address was a very effective one, members on all sides encouraging him to continue by cries of “Go on,” after he had twice intimated that he was willing to conclude. The hour of half-past five having arrived, the Speaker was compelled to interrupt Mr Smylhies while he was reading to the House his letter in reply to Mr For, which he complained was not printed with Mr Fox’s letter, which was among the papers laid before the House by the Government, Air Travers, in barrister’s robes, was present to watch the proceedings on behalf of the profession. In the meantime it is impossible to say when proceedings will be resumed.

THE OTAGO WASTE LANDS BILL, Mr Reid, in moving the second reading of the Bill, said that if adopted it would tend to settle the waste lands question of Otago, and there would be no occasion to regret the action taken. He was followed by Mr Geo. M‘Le n, who complimented the hon. member on having adopted a Very safe way of adopting all plain sailing, and avoiding the knotty points. It was ho who had set the action of that House at defiance by refusing to put into operation the Act passed in 1869. He objected to this annual dish from Otago —this tinkering with the land laws, which was driving capital out of the country. If this Bill was meant to be a settleuu-nt of the matter, he would go heart and soul for it, but it was no such thing, and the House should be careful in passing the Bill, which was only brought in to serve political ends. He would move that the Bill be read a second time that' day six months. The next speaker was Mr M ‘Gillivray, who urged the necessity for the land agitation which had been going on for some past being discontinued. What he wanted wms a general land law for the Colony, and he would endeavor to shaps the Bill in that direction. According to the Independent, Mr Shepherd occupied the Hr use for a considerable time with a speech dt cheated to his constituents through the columns of Hansard. The cries of the people, and how they were responded to, a history of the Otago land laws, seventeen years’ experience in Australia, reference to the repeal of the corn laws, and the important results that would have accrued to the inhabitants of Otago if he had voted in the Provincial Council of that province on an occasion when he did not vote, formed the heads of a very pqinteresting ‘1 stump speech,