HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

Feilding Star, Volume XIX, Issue 85, 7 October 1897, Page 2

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

(Per Press Association.) Wellington, Ocl 6. The House met at 2 30 p.m. New Bills. The following Bills were introduced by tbe Premier and read a first time : — Local Authorities and Municipal Corporations Act Amendment. ADDBKSS IN -REPLY. Tbe debate to tbe Addresß-in-Reply w«s resumed. Mr Lawry, replying to statements made by Mr Piranj. said that the Minister of Public works during bis visit to Hawke's Bay had done actions creditable both to hie heart and head. Mr Moore referred to the inconsistency of those members who spoke against tbe Ministry but voted with them, and said by this means they no doubt pleased their constituents and the Ministry. He considered that tbe Minister of Justice had not made a satisfactory reply to Mr Taylor's charges against the police, and some inquiry was necessary Mr Monk, while admitting tbat the colony bad progressed in recent years, denied tbat the progress was attributable to the present administration. The Hon Mr McKenzie, referring to tbe last speaker's allusion to the political inconsistency of tbe critics of the Government, reminded bim of his own inconsistency when a member of tbe " skinflint " party. As to Mr Monk's structures on tbe advances to settlers the Hon Mr McKenzie advised him to ask tho settlers who previously paid from 7 to 10 per cent, and he would have to alter bis views and acknowledge that tbe scheme had reduced tbe rate of interest to bona fide settlers. As to the attempts to belittle the Premier's efforts to secure a reduction in freights, he said that one of the largest shippers had admitted to him that the Premier bad more to do with tbe reductions secured than any man in the colony. Ministers, he said, had not directly appointed canvassers to enrol electors. Referring to the speech of Mr Scobie McKenzie, he said tbat amongst other matters tbe detective proposed to be got from England should investigate as to who had been privately whitewashed in tbe parlours of the Bank of New Zealand, tbe colonial Baßk. and the Loan and Mercantile Agency Company. He could not describe Mr Scobie MeKenzie's references to Messrs Barron and Ritchie without transgressing the rules of the House, but he regretted that those references had been made.