REBUILDING PARLIAMENT HOUSE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2135, 10 March 1908, Page 3

REBUILDING PARLIAMENT HOUSE.

EXTRA V.'A GANCE DEP RECAI ED. (Special to Times. ) WELLINGTON, March 9. The “Post” fears the expensive scheme in connection with the rebuilding of Parliament House and tho building of a new Government House on another site has not been lost sight of. Tho Premier’s idea of rebuilding Parliament House by public subscription having fizzled out, the Post says: Clearly then business will have to be financed in the usual way, and tho one practical question is whether the scale is to be reasonable or extravagant. Ebrmni’.ly, Ministers are keeping tho question open for Parliament to decide, hut the matter is obviously one with regard to winch they cannot possibly shirk their normal responsibility of taking tho initiative, and a current rumor that they are contemplating the purchase of a suitable site for the erection of a new Government House gives color to tho supposition that their decision will ho in favor of extravagance. We are not in favor of extravagance. We are quite unable to see any present necessity for such purchase, or can we see that so far as the needs of Parliament are concerned, any such necessity will ever arise. An attack of “swelled head,” from which many persons have been suffering since this country blossomed from a colony into a Dominion, without adding an inch to its stature, or a pound to its revenue, by the process has given -thema marvellously exalted notion of both its present and future requirements. Assuming tho Dominion acquired tomorrow a population as large as that of the United Kingdom, and decided in consequence to multiply its Ms.P. to 650, the present strength of the House of Commons, who can say. that tho present Parliamentary grounds would not supply ample room for a building that would accommodate them all together, with an enlarged Legislative Council and a. staff expanded to match. The fact is tho existing site would suffice to house representatives of this Dominion, ■after its population had increased to 50.000,000 or even 100,000,000, and surely even tho gentleman, whose rhetoric runs to tali talk about ‘all time” should be content not to saddle tho twentieth century taxpayer with an expenditure for which no necesB ity may arise before the thirtieth. The olio urgent requirement is that suitable temporary quarters bo provided for tho Governor, who has so courteously placed his own homo at tho disposal of Parliament, and cannot expect to get back again for two or three vears. The best choice that cau bo made will necessarily involve him in a great deal of inconvenience, for which there may be some compensation, in a necessarily reduced scale of expenditure. Could that reduction be made’ permanent we, at anv rate, should not- be sorry, for tlio present 6calo involves a heavy burden, both upon the Dominion and upon its Governors, and the simple life of the old colony representatives is, in our opinion, a far preferable ideal to the extravagance which is a taxation to many, and provides luxury and entertainment for but a very limited class. It is to be hoped that tho Government’s search for a temporary residence for His Excellency, will be speedily successful, and that it may do as well in providing Parliament with a permanent building. As to tho latter point, it is noteworthy that the self-denial of the Governor in giving up his comfortable quarters for the use of Parliament, not only settles the immediate difficulty of providing for the next two or three sessions, 0 but also removes the obstacle whi'h a temporary structure on the present- Parliamentary site would have offered to the erection of a permanent building there. The country should insist upon Parliament House being on a commodious but modest scale, and beings erected just where tho old one stood up to December last.