PARLIAMENTARY NEWS AND NOTES.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 11 September 1901, Page 3

PARLIAMENTARY NEWS AND NOTES.

Juvenile Smokers,

The Juvenile Smoking Suppression Bill which Mr Field is introducing has been circulated. It proposes to make it an offence for any persen under sixteen years of age to smoke tobacco in any shape or form in public, the penalty for a first offence being ss, and 10s for any subsequent offence. A penalty of £5 is provided for supplying tobacco to such young persons, but no conviction is to be entered if a medical officer certifies that the using of tobacco is beneficial to the health of the young person. An Expensive Government. An interesting proof of the extravagant manner in which the Government of New Zealand is carried on was given by Mr. Haselden recently. In Canada, he said the Governor received £2OOO a year, and was allowed one aide-de-Camp at £240. The Attorney-General received £IOOO, and the Premier and two Ministers were each paid £BOO, making a total of £6640 for the cost of the Government. Compare that with New Zealand, lie said, where the Ministry alone cost over £20,000 although we had a population of less than 800,000 and Canada had 1,650,000. The Midland Railway. The position of the Midland Railway was dealt with by Mr Flatman last week. If, he said, the Midland Railway Company’s debenture-holders were paid anything like what the Commission recommended, they would do very well. The company had expended £654,411 in work, and in doing so had spent £454,217 in commissions and salaries. Sales of land grants yielded £313,000 to the company, or £50,000 in excess of the estimate, and the value of the line was put at £192.133. He held that the colony had provided £120,000 in excess of what it was required to provide, and that the colony was at a loss of £158,000 in the matter apart from the debenture-holders’ claims. It would be better for the colony if the Midland line was dropped, They had to put a sevenmile tunnel through the hill at the Otira Gorge, and after that there would be miles of country wiih no signs of timber or mineral wealth, and the land not capable of carrying more than a sheep to three acres. The line would never pay. Bribing the Electorates. The charge of bribing the electorates has been more than once made against the Government, by whom it has always been indignantly repudiated. A case naarated by Mr. Haselden, however, appears to lend colour to the charge. Paring his recent contest for the Patca seat it was found that a vote of £2OOO had been proposed for a bridge at Mangawhero, a place where in previous elections every voter had supported the Opposition candidate. The Minister for Public Works interjected that that bridge had been promised for years. “Yes,” quickly retorted Mr. • Haselden, “ but there was no chance of getting it until I stood against the Government nominee.” The House saw tho point, and showed full appreciation of it. The Public Debt. Among the figures given by the Minister for Customs during his Budget speech were some dealing with the public debt of the colony, and its increase during the past 10 years. On March 31st, 1901, he said, the gross public debt was £49,594,245 as compared with £38,830,350 on March 31st, 1891, or an increase of £10,760,895. This was made up as follows: —Direct interest - earning Land settlement, £2,075,556 ; advances to settlers, £2,380,000; loans to local bodies, £1,205,000; lands improvement, £500,000; Bank of Ne.w Zealand preferred shares, £500,000 ; Now Zealand Consols, £459,389 ; district railways, £47,000; additions .to open lines; £625,000; dairy industry, £1,781, making a total of £7,794,636- Non-direct interest earning—Purchase of native lands, £649,700; public works, £1,910,000 ; increase by conversion, £646,312 ; sinking fund accretions, £1,407,700; naval and military settlers, £27,226; Government Accident Insurance, £2OOO, or a total of £4,642,938. Those two totals amount to £12,437,574, but against that has to be put redemption!, Consolidated Stock Act, 1894, £1,260,420, and other debentures, £416,259, making a total of £1,676,679, and reducing the increase of the public debt to the total first given, £10,760,895.