THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 70, 21 August 1874, Page 4

THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY.

(From a correspondent of the " Press.'")

Wellington. August 19.

The curtain has fallen on the first act of a play which promises to be the greatest ever placed on the stage of New Zealand politics. The opening scene was an admixture of tragedy and farce—the denouement may partake somewhat of the comic elementcomic in so much as it will show how woefully some people have miscalculated their strength. According to bill, the overture was to have commenced at 2.30 p.m. on Thursday, and by stage direction it was announced that the day's performance would conclude with the prologue, the unfolding of the plot to be reserved for Monday, and continued on succeeding days, the attaiumc.it of the catastrophe depending on the disposition of the dramatis personal, as already cast, and of those who, becoming interested in the play as it progressed, may desire to throw off the part of spectators and become actors. But the best laid schemes, &c. There was a hitch at the commencement, and there are sounds in the air that before the curtain finally descends we shall be treated to some exciting and unexpected tableaux. Od Thursday afternoon every member of the Lower House, except Mr T. B. Gillie?, whose absence was very marked and has uot yet been explained, was in his place, and the public galleries, including the ladies' one, which was well patronised—an unusual occurrence in the day-time—were filled by persons anxious to witness the opening of this great drama to which the funny man of the House has given the title of " The Magician and the Blue-Gum." As I have said, the curtain was to have risen at 2.30 p.m., but when the hour arrived it was found necessary to ask for a short delay, ostensibly for the purpose of enabling the chief actor to take a final glance athis part; but if you are to believe the whisperings of the auditorium to try and patch up a quarrel in the camp. More of this anon. At three then Mr Vogel rose to move his resolutions, and did so in a speech of little more than an hour's duration. The speech bristles with figures, as most of the Premier's great speeches do ; but the impressions generally left on his listeners' mind was that his utterances on this occasion were not worthy of the man. and certainly were not equal to the occasion. The speech itself bore too many evidences of hasty preparation, and the plan of action developed in that speech showed the same defect. I send you herewith the speech in full, which I presume you will republish. When Mr Vogel sat down there rose from the Ministerial bench, Mr O'Rorke, who proceeded to deliver himself of one of the most extraordinary speeches I ever heard from a Ministerial bench. If you are to believe rumor, the ex-Minister of Justice when he got on his legs, merely intended to announce that in consequence of the Government determining to proceed with a course of action that was r3pugnant to his political feelings, he could no loDger be a member of the Ministry, and to have then and there, without saying another word, to have intimated that he had resigned. This is the excuse put forward by Mr O'Rorke's friends, but I take leave to think it is not acceptable, nor would it have been so, if that intention had been acted upon ; for there can be no excuse for a proceeding so utterly at variance with the ordinary and well understood rule on such occasions. I have said that Mr O Rorke spoke from the Ministerial bench. And what was the nature of his speech ? In the first place it was a written one, which negatives all idea of the hon gentleman having been carried away by the excitement of the moment. In the next it was a violent attack on his colleagues, and here it has been attempted to split straws. Ministers assert that at the time Mr O'Rorke rose to address the House, he was their colleague, and therefore his conduct smacked of disloyalty to them. Mr O'Rorke claims to have intimated his intention to resign if the measure was pressed, and therefore to take any course which seemed to him fit. What are the facts upon which the public must judge between Mr Vogel and the ex-Minister of Justice ? At the Cabinet meeting at which the question was considered, the question was put whether or not the Government should this session bring down a proposal to abolish the North Island provinces, Mr O'Rorke was the only member of the Cabinet who opposed the proposition. Of course we cannot be informed of what transpires in the Cabinet; and we only know the little we do because the honor of the Premier, if not that of his colleagues, was involved by the proceedings of Thursday last. Mr O'Rorke, when the question was put to him whether he would fall in with the views of the Cabinet, said, " Mr Vogel, you cannot expect me to acquiesce in that," and left the Cabinet; but when he got outside he appears to have bad a conversation with Mr Reynolds, with whom he had been in closer communication than with any other member of the Ministry, in the course of which he told that gentleman that he could never agree to such resolutions as the Cabinet had determined to submit to the consideration of Parliament. So far then we have it that- Mr O'Rorke disagreed with the action of his colleagues, and in Cabinet and out of it intimated that he could not be expected to acquiesce in it. Mark what follows. After Mr Vogel's speech, Mr O'Rorke gets up and makes a speech aimed particularly at the Premier. I don't, suppose the Hansard report will bo published in time for this mail, therefore 1 append the Times' report, which iu the main is fair, but I have corrected two mistakes, possibly of a typographical character. The italicised passage I will explain presently. [The report has already appeared in our columns. The passage corrected by our correspondent, reads as follows in the report,of the Nero Zealand Times —" The Premier supposed he owed the House an apology for the fact that a member of the Government of which, he was the head, should have made the exhibition which had just made. [Hear, and cries o! ' Chair,' and ; No.'~| Anything so exceptional had never been heard of before." Our correspondent alters the last sentence to read as follows—" Anything so unconstitutional had never been heard of before."] The newspapers render differently the words I have italicised. The Times, as you see, makes Mr O'Rorke say, " a dagger of perfidy." The Post, 1 thiuk, " a sharp pointed dagger ;" but the actual words were, " a treacherous dagger." When he had finished Mr O'Rorke" left the Chamber, and received a perfect ovation from those whose ranks he was about to join. The House rang again with cheers from the Opposition, and the storm of applause followed Mr O'Rorke out of the House. The gentlemen on the Ministerial "bench' were fairly flabbergasted, I

if I may bo permitted to use a vulgar and expressive term. On their faces was unmistakably depicted the extreme surprise the scene just enacted had given them. Tt was some minutes before Mr Vogel was tempted to get up, and when he did speak he did not make an explanation becoming him or his position, There was too much passion in his remarks ; more than the circumstances, and their trying nature will be admitted, justified. It was not gentlemanly to apply the word "exhibition" to one who, according to Mr Vogel's own showing, was at that very moment his colleague ; nor was there auy justification for the sneering allusion to Mr O'Horke's none too close application to the departmental duties of his office. In so far as the manner in which Mr O'Rorke's explanation was made was concerned the Premier had just ground for complaint, and it cannot be too strongly condemned, but the ex-Minister of Justice had equal cause to complain of the Premier unfairly and unjustifiably introducing a matter totally beskle the question. On Thursday the country wns treated to this spectacle —a Minister asserting one thing ; and the Premier asserting another. Matters could not be allowed to rest there : and it was natural that at the very first sitting of the House, which was on the following Monday, explanations should be demanded. Mr O'Rorke, claiming to be regarded a truthful man, appealed to his late colleagues, the Minister for Public Works, the Commissioner of Customs, and the Native Minister to say whether or not he had stated truly that he had (intimated when it was announced the resolutions were to be pressed, that he could no longer be a member of the Ministry. Of course there could be only one answer to that. Such an intimation was made; tbut Mr O'Rorke never proceeded, so far as any of his colleagues knew, beyond that intimation. Saying you will resign is one thing, and actually resigning another, and then Mr Reynolds being the first appealed to was the first to reply to Mr O'Rorke, and he admitted that the latter, after the Cabinet meeting in question, said " he could never agree to the resolution, but he never understood the hon gentleman was going to resign. He knew Mr O'Rorke was dissatisfied, and thought it probable, before the resolutions wercmoved, that he would intimate to the Government his resignation, but no such intimation was given until he rose to make it from the Ministerial bench." Sir Donald M'Lean spoke much to the same effect. He knew Mr O'Rorke had a repugnance to the resolutions, but he never heard him say he intended to resign. If he had so intended, the proper course would have been for him to have made his explanation from some other bench than the Ministerial one. Ministers knew the hon gentleman did not concur in the resolutions, but when he appeared at the Ministerial table, it was natural to think that he had changed his mind and acquiesced in them." Mr Richardson corroborated his colleagues. "Beyond the hon gentleman telling Mr Vogel that he could not be expected to acquiesce in the resolutions, he had not the slighest idea that he was going to resign until he got up in his place°and so intimated," Thus we have the strong testimony, not only of the Premier but of three of his colleagues, that Mr O'Rorke never wentjbeyond expressing his intention to resign. Ministers could not, when he appeared at the Ministerial table, assume that he had actually resigned. On the contrary, the mere appearance of the hon gentleman at the Ministerial table prevented any such assumption. But there are other considerations, all of which should have been present in Mr O'Rorke's mind, because he cannot claim the excuse of inexperience, because for years he was chairman of eommitte s. and no man in the House is better acquainted with precedents than himself. And what is the ordinary rule in such cases. Mr Vogel on Monday supplied three instances—but is not their number legion?— of retiring Ministers making their explanations not from the Ministerial bench but from a seat in the House. Not only that, but in nearly every case, the announcement of (he retirement of the Minister is first made by the head of the Government, and the ex-Minister's explanation follows. And in every case, the handing in of the resignation and the intimation of that fact to the 'iotl of the Government nre conditions precedent to any announcement beiug made. Theie are one or two or other circumstances connected with this matter that deserve to be mentioned, and they will materially assist tl e public to estimate properly Mr O'Rorke's action. Two days before the resolutions were moved, t was known in the lobbies that Mr O'Rorke intended to resign. Even before the adjournment of fifteen minutes was asked by Sir Donald McLean, on the House mneting on Thursday, it was almost regarded as an accepted fact that the Minister of Justice had resigned. At all events the fact, whether existing or assumed, was telegraphed both North and South ; and an hour aftei wards found its way into print here. I have mentioned that it was asserted the fifteen minutes adjournment was asked for for the purpose of endeavouring to patch up the differences bet ween Mr O'Rorke and his colleagues. But the assertion had and could have no foundation, for have we not the statement of Ministers that tip to the time Mr O'Rorke got up and said so they had no idea, he intended to resign. And, having no knowledge that he was going to resign, what necessity could there be for trying to patch up differences? The long and the short of the matter is, Mr O'Rorke allowed his temper to get the better of his judgment. None can deny that he acted unadvisedly, and in a way at variance with precedent, but no one will seek to take from him the credit that belongs to a man determined at all hazard to act up to his principles. It is only the manner in which he intimated he had left the Government, and not his doing so, that right-minded people blame him for.

I have wrilten so much about this personal question that I find myself prevented from referring at any length to the progress of the debate and the speeches alreafly delivered. Nor do I think your readers will lose mueh by my not doing so. The telegraph will no doubt have conveyed to you the substances of the speeches, and it would only be a waste of time and space to touch upon them, when in all probability the debate will have terminated before this reaches you. The interest that is taken in the question is shown by the daily attendance of the public. The gfalleries are filled, and some evenings one has to go to the House half-an-hour before it meets in order to secure a seat. The speaking so far has not risen above the level of mediocrity, if you except the speeches of Mr Vogel, Mr Macandrew. Mr Montgomery, Mr Wood, MiReeves, -.nd Mr Sheehan. Mr Reeves was extremely nervous at the start, and once or twice it looked as if he was going to break

down ; but he warmed up as he proceeded, and towards the end of his speech spoke with animation and vigor. Mr Montgomery spoke towards the close of the afternoon yesterday, and made n most creditable effect. In the member for Akaroatlie House gains a clever debater, and the fact w?s acknowledged later in the day by such an experienced man as Mr Wood.

Yesterday, too, Mr Reynolds was put up to Hansardize some members now in opposition, but he did not make a very good fist of it. Mr Worid made a speech worthy of him as an oratorical effect, but I don't think his arguments were very convincing. Even Mr Macandrew dealt in generalities, and indeed 1 may say this has been so far the feature of the debate. Everyone knows within a vote or two how the division will go. Every man's mind is made up, and has been so on this question for years, aud all the talking in the world would not alter a single vote. For all practical purposes, the House might have gone to a division on Thursday, after MrVogel sat down. But it.is necessary membersshould say something, and we arc treated to a week's debate, at a cost of several thousands. That expenditure might be pardonable if the hou gentlemen would face the question fairly ; but instead of doing so, we have had opinions on almost every known subject, except whether the time has come to abolish provinces in the North. So far, the little men have been allowed to say what they pleased. It is now the turn of the big guns, aud possibly they may treat the question very differently. There are three amendments on the paper, one by Mr Thomson, one by Mr Wakefield, aud a third by Mr Murray but as all who are acquainted with Parliamentary proceedings

• now, the previous question prevents them being put. The object of the previous question is to confine the speaking, and I am not at all sure but it dem-ives the Premier of his right of reply. The consequence has been that sides have been playing a waiting game. Mr Fitzherbert will not speak until Mr Stafford has done so, and Sir Donald McLean will not get on his feet until he has heard what Mr T. B. Gillies has to say. Thus we have a good deal of time wasted ; and twice already has the Speaker been on the point of putting the question, before any one would get up. The debate is expected to conclude on Thursday or Friday, and it is now ascertained with tolerable certainty that the Government will have a majority of from ten to twelve ; and some people are bold enough to put it down at fifteen.

It is rather too late in the day to refer to the second debate on the Licensing Bill. The barmaid clause did not give rise to much discussion. Mr Fox had it all to himself, and as he has taken the trouble to write his speech on the question, in the hope that he may be done the justice of being quoted, you may perhaps humor him to that extent-. He said :—The employment of young women in the business of public drinking bars was not consistent with the boasted civilisation of the period. There was no doubt it was an employment which subjected those engaged in it to most dangerous and seductive influences, and tended to degrade and deteriorate their purity. He would put his case in a very few words. He would suppose the case of any member of that House, whose circumstances might be such as require him to bring up his boy to some trade, with a view to his future maintenance. We will suppose him to have carefully tended his boy's early nurture and education, and to have watched over him with a fatherly care. Is there any man here who, under such circumstances, would take his son by the hand and lead him to the nearest publican, and ask him to take him as an apprentice, and employ him in the trade of his bar? He was certain there was no father of wellregulated affections, who would not shrink with abhonence from such a career for his boy. But how with a mother and her daughter ! Was there a mother in the world who" had carefully watched over her daughter's early years, protecting her from all evil ways, and training her in good; who had taught her to pray by her mother's knee, and made her the pride of the domestic hearth ; who, when she reached seventeen or eighteen years of age, would take and immolate her on the altar of Bacchus, by placing her in the- bar of a public house ? There lived not the woman, unless she were hereself lost and degraded by long familarity with strong drink, who would not shrink with hoiror from submitting his daughter to such a fate. Well, then, if all right-thinking fathers and mothers would recoil from makiug their daughters barmaids, ought the Government to allow the opportunity to exist for those young girls who had not wise fathers nor virtuous mothers, to drift into the dangerous and degrading position cf a barmaid. Look at our inconsistency. At this moment we are seekiug to import young women immigrants, who are to be the mothers of the future people of New Zealand. We rightly endeavor to have them seclected from the purest and most uucorrupted sources. What an outcry there would be if the Agent-General were to send out a shipload, and inform us that he had collected them from bars of the ginshops of Wapping or Rotherhithe 1 And yet here are we, scrupulous to prudery about the purity of the future mothers of New Zealand in the matter of their selection in England, yet ready to consign them to a barmaid's career the moment they arrive, and wiling to afford every facility for those already here to devote themselves to the same sort of business. Mr Vogel had intimated that he (Mr Fox) had a dislike to barmaids, and his attempt to create a diversion in this way had been echoed by some of the silly advocates of the publican' in the newspapers. Ho entirely denied the allegation. His desire was to'benelit the class. He had no object but their welfare in view. The best thing that could be done for them would be to prevent them being barmaids at all, but, failing that, he was prepared to stand to his proposal that they should be put on the same footing as other women in trades which require prolonged physical exertion, aud afforded the same protection as afforded to others by the Factories' Employment Act. To this extent, at all events, he was confident the House would support him.

Though the Houst by 2-1 to 12 was willing to limit the hours of barmaids to ten hours a day, from 11 a.m. to 11 p,m„ it could not be prevailed to go to the length asked by .Mr Fox. Even the concession granted on Mr Steward's motion was against the wish of the Government. Mr Vogel was particularly savage at it being carried, and petulantly told the House it might as well pass a law making it compulsory for publicans to send breakfast up to their barmaids in bod. Mr Fox, however, had very few with him in his attempt to have all bars aud public

drinking rooms with open windows without blinds or other obstructions, so that it might be seen from the outside what was going en within. Much amusement, Mr Fox himself tells us in his temperance column in the Times, was caused when he told the House the parent of the suggestion was Mr Vogel. He read a passage from a speech which Mr Vogel delivered in 1872. strongly recommending the proposal, and he told the House how he (Mr Fox) had been called a fool and a lunatic by a certain literary publican at Christchurch, and by the press organs of the liquor traffic, for proposing such a clause. Mr Vogel's expression of face was highly amusing when Mr Fox gave the House the evidence of his being the author of the clause, but he showed great good humor and tact by walking round the Speakers chair with Mr Fox and the other " Ayes." Though Mr Fox was tolerably successful, inasmuch as he persuaded the Premier to withdraw the eighteenth clause of the Bill, and carried the abolition of dancing saloons and a partial limitation of the hours of barmaids, his friends are not satisfied, and through their organ, the Tribune, call upon the Council to pass the amendments they could not induce the Lower House to agree to.

The Ward-Chapman committee sits daily now. They have still a large number of important witnesses to examine, and it may be a week if not more before they conclude their investigations. It is understood they see their way to discovering how the telegrams leaked out, without necessitating the attendance of Mr Murison. Mr Macassey has been under examination during two sittings, and according to what oue hears in the lobbies, part of his evidence was of an extraordinary nature.

Most people in the colony, and a good many out of it, have become so accustomed to hear of the success that attends the dodges of the Superintendent of Wellington and his trusty lieutenant, that they will be astonished to learn that for once the Colonial Treasurer has been able to checkmate them in about as barefaced an attempt to help their friends at the expense of the colony as it possible to conceive. To the Wanganni Herald belongs the credit of bringing to light this little business, the facts of which may be thus stated : When it became known thfct an immigration depot aud officer were to be appointed at Wairarapa, the proprietors of the Standard (a paper that strongly supports Messrs Fitzherbert and Bunny) wrote to the Provincial Secretary, offering the use of their office as an immigration office at a rental of £2O a year. This offer was made officially, but there had been private correspondence on the subject between the newspaper proprietors, and Mr Bunny, resulting in the latter endorsing the application and recommending that it should be accepted. Mr Vogel forwarded it to the Superintendent, observing that recommendations of the kind should come from that personage, expressing his own opinion that expenditure for rent should not be initiated by those who have offices to rent; and pointing out that the General Government had already a depot in the district, at Greytown. But as Mr Fitzherbert in reply, urged that the offer should be accepted ; Mr Vogel reluctantly acceded to the request, thinking no doubt that the matter would end there. " Give them an inch and they'll take an ell." Next came a request by Mr Fitzherbert that Mr Payton, one of the proprietors of the Standai'd should be appointed immigration officer at Wairarapa at £SO a year. What followed is best told by the Herald. Mr Vogel seeing how matters were drifting, answered the letter thus:—"These gentlemen are the proprietors of the newspaper published in the district, and it is of great importance that the Press should hold to the conduct of immigration independent relations. For this reason, if for no other, I cannot approve the proposed appointment." But even this plain answer did not satisfy, for Mr Payton having been informed of the unfavorable result, did not despair of catching the £7O Mr Bunny had so temptingly hung before him, and immediately suggested that Mr R. Bright, a young man who knows nothing whatever about immigrants, or the necessary office routine, should be appointed in his place. Mr Vogel, however, took no notice of this and appointed a suitable person to take charge of the immigrants sent to that district. Upon hearing of this appointment, Messrs Wakefield and Payton immediately withdrew the offer of leasing any part of their office to the Government, and there was no further correspondence on the subject, excepting perhaps letters of condolence from Mr Bunny to Messrs Wakefield and Payton, who no doubt replied in the same strain, probably beginning their private letters, as they did their official ones, with " Dear Mr Bunny." Some little bother is likely to be caused by the Dunedin Star's exposure of the way in which official information sometimes leaks out. In a late letter it says :—" I can instance three cases within the last week in which information has been obtained, in what I do not hesitate to call an improper and disreputable manner. lam not about to say that any officials are tampered with ; but I will affirm what I am about to complain of, is, aud can only be done with their cognizance, if not by their actual assistance. If it will be at tempted to be said that the information about the latest dispatches on immigration the despatches themselves, the mining report, or the. proceedings before the committee which is investigating the Ward-Chapman scandal came through an ordinary channel, I am prepared to meet the assertion with a flat contradiction, and to prove, if necessary its absolute falsity. In two of the cases I have referred to, certain persons were enabled, days before the papers were circulated, to inform their constituents in the North, and in the South, of the entire matters dealt with in those papers; and I am not travelling beyond the limit of the fact when I say that in one instance, persons in the South were able to discuss important information before even those on the spot for whom information was obtained." Whether his assertions are founded on fact, or are the outcome of spleen, because some other correspondent has been more vigilant than himself, I do not pretend to say ; but one or the qther will be soon determined, as Mr Vogel has taken up the matter, and intends to enquire into it.

Tn the town of Waterloo, Seneca county New York, lives aMr G—, who is noted for his fond''ess for good books; he liked good liquor better. An agent called one day and asked if the house was supplied with the Bible. "Ah, yes," he said, "they always had it. The agent was a little incredulous, and requested to see it. Whereupon Mr G— searched the house and found a few stray leaves, saying "he had no idea that they were so near out of the Bible,"