PARLIAMENTARY.

Gisborne Times, Volume X, Issue 945, 18 July 1903, Page 2

PARLIAMENTARY.

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL. (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, last night, The Council met at 2.30. The First Offenders Probation Act Amendment Bill,Legitimation Act Amendment Bill, and Intestate Estates Bill were read a second time. /

HOUSE OP REPRESENTATIVES. The House met at 2.30. ; The Publio Petitions Committee reported that they had no recommendation to make in regard to the petition of thirteen Dunedin hotelkeepers who complained that they had suffered pecuniary loss, and had been deprived of their means of living through the severe administration of t'jyLicensing Act. Mr Buddo brought down the report of the Public Petitions Committee on the petition of Jessie Mackenzie and twentyone others, of Auckland, who prayed that separate provision be made for tbe shelter and management of imbecile persons who are already inmates of various asylums. The leport was as follows :—“ That in the opinion of the Committee the time has arrived when provision should be made for separate institutions for weak-minded or imbecile and idiotic persons, who at present, through the want of more suitable accommodation, are sunt to lunatic asylums, where they are unavoidably associated with patients who are under treatment for insanity, and where also no attempt is made towards the classification of or improvement by means of training and education, and further, that from the evidence before them the Committee are of opinion that there is urgent necessity for immediate action being taken by the Government in the matter.” A long discussion ensued, in which Lff Seddon expressed the opinion that the overcrowding of asylums was partly due to the fact that people were confined (here who had no right to be there. Government were seriously considering the whole question of lunatic asylums reform, Mr Graham resumed the debate on the Addressin-Reply. The House met at 7.30. The Hon. Mr Seddon was amongst the speakers in the Address in-Reply. debate to-night. He expressed pleasure at the general tone of the debate, and at the small amount of criticism the Government policy had been subjected to. Government had been blamed for omitting any reference to the licensing question in the Governor’s speech, but he pointed out that the speech did make mention of the matter. Sir W. Russell had complained that there had been no remissions in taxation, but he (Mr Seddon) pointed out that the tariff revisions of 1895 and 1900 represented the remission to the taxpayers of over one million sterling, while half a million of remissions had been given to the people through railway reductions. Our financial position was still best of all the Australasian colonies, and he strongly deprecated decrying the credit of the '& colony for party purposes. The cry for freehold for Crown tenants came from large landed proprietors, who had the aggregation of large estates in view. In defending Mahuta’s appointment he denied that Mahuta was landless, and declared he had 21,000 acres in his own name. Mahuta had informed him that he would be in Wellington soon.