PARLIAMENTARY GOSSIP.

Evening Star, Issue 3313, 2 October 1873, Page 2

PARLIAMENTARY GOSSIP.

(BY OUR SPECIAL REPORTER.) Wellington, September 29. I suppose to-day will witness the beginning of the end. The Ministerial meeting, while I am writing, will determine what the future length of the session will be. Three days or three weeks—fresh measures to carry policy—or pass it on to another session. There has been a large amount of running to and fro during the last few days—members have been whispering each other i’ the ear—serious conclaves and consultations have been held—late hours and hard work have told their tale—the whole session has been wearisome and tedious to the flesh—and the representatives of the people feel eager to get under the shadow of their own vine or tigtree, and see their olive branches grow and multiply. The men as a rule are conscientious and hard working, doing their devoir according to the knowledge and judgment they possess. It requires a mighty magician to make water flow from a rock, the dumb become eloquent, or the blind see ; and although we have the dry, the dumb, the mumbling, the shortsighted among our legislative crowd, most of them are actuated, I believe, by a desire to benefit the Colony, and are not self-seekers. I say it with sorrow, but it is nevertheless the truth, the Upper House has greater breadth of vision, better debating powers, and a higher tone than the one that represents the people. It is the fashion to underrate it. Its members are removed from being delegates, they have no constituencies to please, they are mostly men of means, they have scarcely a man who gushes among them save Whitmore, of whom it is recorded that he spoke seventy-two times in one evening sitting, and have expressed their hope that the Government would bring down a general property tax for the whole Colony, if I were the Premier I would take them at their word. As at present constituted, no Provincial Borrowing Bill will ever pass the Upper House. It will have none of it. It matters not to Otago in the least whether Provinces may borrow or not, I suppose ; only to the Provinces of the North Island. We may consider the l ist struggle for Pro- » vincial borrowing as having come to an untimely end. • Speaking of borrowing, the people of Clyde wanted to obtain power to borrow LS.Otn, to erect a bridge across the Molyneux at Clyde, where the ferry now plies. Mr Hazlett, the Mayor of Clyde, defeated the member for the Dunstan for the Provincial Council. To revenge himself on his constituents, the hon. gentleman lobbied the members of the Council to get the Bill thrown out - misrepresenting the monetary condition of Clyde, declaring the whole of the property in townships to be worth less than LBOO. The Bill was thrown out of the Council on Saturday. The lion. Mr Campbell introduced Pyke’s Queenstown Bill, and it eut through without a word or a manner. Bradshaw’s Factory Bill met with a similar fate to that one concerning Clyde bridge. The Loan Bills were first called “the seven little pigs,” the main Bill haring been termed “ the old sow ” ; they afterwards were called “ the seven devils ”; lastly “ the seven neglected criminal children.” When the second reading of these seven small Bills came on Friday evening, there was a considerable muster in the Upper House—the Strangers’ gallery W'as crowded; the one set apart for the M.H.K.’a full; a sprinkling of ladies could he seen in the feminine peer quarters, and guests from the castle were accomt modated with chairs on the floor of the House. At times the division bell of the Lower House would be heard clanging away, and then the representatives of the people would be seen hurrying away to record their votes —a few remaining only intent on the work on hand. It was an anxious time for the Superintendents—they all were there save our own ; but no man was to be pitied more than him of Taranaki, who has told that he had no security at all to give, having to buy the land before it could be pledged. The fate of the Bills was sealed the moment Dr Pollen said if the Council disapproved of them, the Government would bring down another measure more consonant with their views. I hftve my tongue tied, and my hand paralysed, ever since Provincial borrowing appeared on tb§

m mmmt floor of the House, and 1 Write the letters K, I, P. over its memory and tomb with unfeigned satisfaction. The Premier told us the other evening he respected those who opposed it from conviction, but had no sympathy with those who did so from opposition. _