WELLINGTON.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 404, 28 September 1875, Page 3

WELLINGTON.

{From a correspondent of the Press.) Sepcember 25. Yet another, and all but the final, Btage of the Abolition Bill has been reached, and everybody must be thankful the end is so near. The readers of the Preps can hardly be more heartily sick of abolition debates than are those unfortunates in Wellington who are compelled to listen to the wearisome " talkee, talkee." Had it not been for that determination, made in an unlucky moment, to embalm in the pages of Hansard every word said on this subject, I believe the Bill would have come out of committee more than a week sooner than it did. Practically that result was attained early on Friday morning. The fighting during the week has been principally upon the clauses relating to the allocation of the gold fields revenue, to the appropriation of the land fund, and to the extinction of the Provincial Councils. On the gold fields revenue clauses Sir George Grey raised a false issue by moving the repeal of the Gold Duty Acts. Of coarse a proposal to abolish the export duty on gold was sure to catch the votes of the goldfields members, but a few of the latter were wary enough to see that it was pos ible that the miners may not be disposed, under the altered circumstances, to oppose the continuance of the impost, which hitherto has pressed heavily upon them, and against which they have never failed to protest. Their objection has not been so much against the levying of the tax, as against the way f.n which it was disposed of. As Mr Harrison put it, the miners did object to paying an exceptional tax, which was expended in districts other than those in which it was raised ; but they would view the matter differently when the whole of that tax was returned to them, with a pound for pound subsidy besides. Too little attention was paid to the experience of the reduction in the duty made a couple of years ago. Sixpence an ounce was then taken off, but the price of gold remained the same, and only a few large companies benefited by the reduction. To the wages of the working miner it added nothing. Mr Shepherd moved in the same direction as Sir George, but he would have been content that the repeal should only date from the coming into operation of the Act. Sir George was quite grandiloquent upon the wrongs of the miners, and later in the day descended to bathos on their behalf, picturing, in almost harrowing terms, the sufferings that would be brought about if this reduction, which meant giving the children of every working member an extra loaf a day, were notcarried. The Treasurer laughed this argument to scorn, and put it to Sir George that it would be fairer to take a direct issue on the question by introducing a Bill to repeal the Acts, instead of attempting to do so by a side wind. The opportunity of directly discussing the question was offered to Sir George, but declined by him. Though beaten on a division, Sir George is determined to try to gain his object in the way suggested by the Treasurer. For that purpose he has introduced a Gold Duty Repeal Bill, and to assist the miners he has given notice of a Bill which will give to them the fee simple of the land they work. The discussion on the land clauses were repoited pretty fully, so that your readers will have long since been enabled to understand the arguments of the various speakeis. Mr Macandrew's speech in favor of his Board of Works proposal was a psean of praise of what the provincial system had been able to effect in Otago. Th< re, said he, the progress made in the short time the province had existed, and by the handful of people in it, bad not been equalled in any part of the world ! Throughout its length and breadth roads and bridges had been made, in illustration of which he mentioned the fact that very recently he bad been able to drive over seven hundred miles of country in less than a fortnight, During the current year a sum of £270,000 had been spent by the Provincial Government on public works, irrespective of local Road Boards. Fully two hundred different and distinct road lines had been made, at a cost of £142,600 ,' seventy bridges, at a cost of £58,000 ; twenty jetties and wharves, £23.420 ; twenty-nine different works and buildings, at a cost of £55,C00. And of this sum of £270,000 not more than £IO,OOO had

been spent in Dunedin. This was an amount of real colonising work which could never be hoped for from the colony. But the Committee preferred to let the Colonial Government try. rather than to hand over the administration of the residue of the land fund to a political Board of Works, which from the very nature of things would develop centralising tendencies which must operate to the disadvantage of outlying districts. Towards the early hours of Wednesday evening, the Committee's proceedings were enlivened by a succession of stormy scenes, in which Mr Reader Wood and Sir George Grey and the Treasurer.figured conspicuously. In the course of the discussion on Mr Reeves' amendment, that twenty-five per cent of the land fund should be paid over to every district, in order to place all parts of the colony on the same footing as the Timaru and Gladstone Board of Works. Mr Reader Wood, adopting the role of Dismal Jemmy, drew a terrible picture of the financial condition of the colony. So used have members become to similar strains, that little notice was taken of the member for Parnell; and in all probability the amendment would have been put immediately after he sat down had he not credited the Treasurer with an admission that he had not made, viz, that there was an actual deficit in the accounts, and that difficulty had been experienced in meeting the public creditor. Dp jumped the Treasurer with a flat contradiction. He went on to say that the member for Parnell had consciously stated what was not true, and challenged that hon gentleman and the member for Auckland West, who had on a previous occassion made statements equally at variance with facts, to prove that there was a deficit, and in order to assist them, promised to produce the accounts of the Colony in whatever form they pleased. Mr Wood was up before the Treasurer was fairly in his seat, and in a towering passion enquired what was the good of asking for returns. Weeks b -fore, he had called for a return of the estimated land fund to be received within each provincial district for the period, from November Ist, 1875, to June 30th, 1876, and what were they told? That in Canterbury it would amount to £461.758 ; yet the Superintendent and every member belonging to that province knew that the estimated land revenue of Canterbury was £164,000. All the balances were spent already, wherefire the return was not only false, inaccurate, and incorrect, but the most scandalous paper ever laid before the Assembly. Mr J. B. Brown came to the rescue. He had gone carefully through the Canterbury estimates, and found the return to which the member for Parnell had applied such strong terms, absolutely correct. The correctness of the return was also vouched for by the Minister for Justice, from whose explanations, as well as from those of Mr Brown and the Treasurer, it appeared that the return included the balances in hand in the provincial chest at the date the return was made up; and that when the return was moved for the Treasurer explained that it would be impossible to make it up in any other form, as no distinction could be drawn between how much of the balances had been expended during the first four months of the year, and how much remained to be expended during the last eight months. Mr Wood at once admitted that this explanation might have been made, but he had not heard it, and had been at a loss to understand bow the £461,000 could be got. A simple explanation of the fact that the amount included the balances in hand would have put the matter right ; and if in the heat of the debate he had spoken o£ the return as being " scandalously untrue" he much regretted it. But the return, without explanation, was likely to mislead, and he reminded the committee that the Treasurer had used language equally strong as himself. Sir George Grey, a* usual, was content with making general assertions, but he undertakes when the estimates come on for discussion to prove that the surpluses have been ' manufactured." The best thing during the debate was said in a single sentence by Mr Hunter, viz, that when making such grave assertions as had fallen from the members for Auckland West and Parnell, the proof should come first. On clause 29, which enacts that Provincial Councils shall no longer meet, Mr Macandrew professed to have been taken aghast that such a monstrous proposal should have been made. He characterised it as a piece of unmitigated tyranny, which would rebound on the heads of those who perpetrated it. Though it was adding insult to injury, he warned the Government that no edict of that House would prevent the Councils from assembling. Mr Rolleston contented himself with protesting ; Mr Fitzherbert was in turns gay and severe ; and Sir George more practical in his remarks than he has been on any previous occasion during the present session. But, despite the appeals and protests of the four Superintendents, the House decided by 36 against 17 that Provincial Councils shall cease to be. Mr Fitzherbert's principal trouble was that they were permitted to pass away without decent burial. The remaining clauses of the Bill called for little or no discussion, and on Tuesday the measure will be recommitted to dispose of a few amendments of quite a trivial character.

Thursday evening's sitting was remarkable for a thoroughly good Canterbury free fight, which was provoked by Mr Stafford, who in the course of one of his many speeches on Mr J. B. Brown's amendment on clause 24, dragged in the name of Mr Jollie, to illustrate his argument that the provincial party, of which Mr Montgomery is the head, was exceedingly hostile to the interests of South Canterbury. What followed you know. Mr RoLleston and Mr Montgomery came to the rescue of their absent friend, and defended him from the attacks of the member for Timaru ; who turning upon the member for Selwyn, classed him among the hostile ones. The latter was provoked into using strong language, which brought upon himself the charge of being " impertinent." So unparliamentary a word could hardly be allowed to pass ; but though he immediately withdrew it, Mr Stafford quickly repeated it in almost the same form, while he advised the member for Selwyn to keep his temper under similar circumstances in future. Altogether the three hours' debate on Mr Brown's amendment was instructive to a section of the House which hag long been of opinion that the representatives of your southern neighbor were alone able to pick holes in each other's coats. Friday was given up to private members' business, with which a good deal of progress was made. The principal discussions were upon the Municipal Corporations and Marriage Amendment Acts. On the firstmentioned, Mr Luckie, as the advocate of the poor man, moved that the marriage fee

should bo reduced from three guineas to one. At first, members were generally disposed to have a laugh at the expense of the member for Nelson, not thinking him in earnest; and Mr Williams went the length of asking the Colonial Treasurer, with all the gravity imaginable, if it was intended to localise these fees. Mr Andrew, true to his clerical instincts, objected to the reduction, though it might be justified, on the score that the paltry affair at the registrar's office was not worth more than one pound. Mr Bowen treated the committee to a homily on the subject of the marriage laws, and expresser 1 a wish that the marriage law should be revised, and all persons about to be married compelled to go through the civil ceremony, leaving it to themselves to determine whether they would also go through any religious ceremony they might consider to be binding upon their consciences. But this religious ceremonj should be altogether apart from and independent of the civil contract, which should be compulsory. Mr Reader Wood took a similar view, but the proposal appeared to shock Mr Rolleston. However, Mr Luckie carried his point. On the Municipal Corporations Act, the clause relating to the bye-laws, which gave rise to so much discussion on a previous occasion, was amended so as to read that the bye-laws shall be forwarded to the Governor, who has the power of disallowing them within one month ; and, failing the exercise of that power, they are to be published in the Gazette and a local newspaper, when they will have the force of law. The following very important clause was added to the Bill after a very short discussion :—" The section numbered 299 of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1867, is hereby repealed, and thefollowing provision in lieu thereof shall be deemed to be and form part of the said Act (that is to say)—lf the roadway or side paths of any private street or of any part of any private street in any borough, whether heretofore made or hereafter to be made, shall not have been or be made good to the satisfaction of the Council of such borough, such Council may cause the same to be made good to their satisfaction, and the expenses which shall be incurred by the Council in effecting the same shall be charged upon the owners of land abutting on snch private street or upon such part of a private street, as the case may be, as shall have been so made good, in the proportion which the frontage to such street or part of such street, as the case may be, of the land owned by each of them bears to the whole frontage of the land chargeable hereunder, and the proportion charged upon each such owner shall be paid by him to the Council within one calendar month after an advertisement requiring payment of the same shall have been published in some newspaper circulating within the borough, and if not so paid shall be recoverable by the Council from such owner in any court of competent jurisdiction; and the pr< ■ duction by or on the part of the Council of a copy of the newspaper containing such advertisement shall be deemed to be conclusive evidence in any action brought for the recovery of such expenses of the liability of the owner mentioned therein to the payment of the monies sought to be recovered ; and it is hereby declared that it shall be sufficient in such advertisement, and in any action brought as aforesaid, in case the name of any such owner shall not be known to the Council, to describe such owner as ' the owner of the parcel of land forming or being part of section | naming it by its number on some public record map], in the Borough of [naming the borough], abutting upon .' " On the Marine Act Amendment Bill, Mr SwaDSon called attention to the fourth subsf ction of the Act of 1867, which impliedly gave the Governor the power of removing at will the officers of any Harbor Board, and called upon the Government to strike out the clause, which he contended was a dangerous one. The Commissioner of Customs pointed out that occasion might arise for the exercise of such an extreme power, but no Government would dream of calling it into use except in the most extreme case. The House was of the same mind as the Minister, for it at once agreed to the second reading of the Bill. In introducing his Evidence Amendment Bill, the Minister for Justice explained that it would in many respects assimilate the criminal law to that of England. Parties in actions for breach of promise of marriage were to be competent to give evidence, and parties, and their husbands and wives, were to be competent to give evidence in suits for adultery. It was also desirable to prevent that indecent haste which was frequently to be seen in cases of assault, with which parties rushed off to the court to gain an advantage by getting out first summonses. In these criminal summary proceedings where the offender was punishable by fine, or fine or imprisonment, the persons charged, and their husbands or wives, should be competent to give evidence, but not compellable unless the person charged has voluntarily been examined or submitted to examination. It was proposed to get rid of the difficulty constantly occurring in the Courts owing to the religious scruples of persons required as witnesses, by allowing those objecting to take oaths tomake declarations, and be triable for perjury in case of making false declarations. The Bill met with general commendation, but notice was given of some slight amendments, the principle being by Mr Curtis, who will seek to add that power should be given to the judge to put questions to the accused person; such questions, which the latter may answer at his discretion, to be put just prior to the Judge summing up, and neither prisoner's counsel nor lhe Crown prosecutor is to have the power to cross-examine upon the answers elicited.

The Orders of the Day having been cleared off, the House adjourned till Monday. On Tuesday the estimates are to be proceeded with, and when they have been well advanced Ministers will make a statement of what business they intend to proceed with, and what to abandon. Seeing that there are no less than sixty-eight Bills on the paper, and that the session is expected to be brought to a close in about three weeks from this date, the massacre of the innocents will be unusually large this year.

At Friday's sitting leave of absence was granted to Sir Cracroft Wilson, who for more than a fortnight has been confined to his room through illness. When the hon gentleman has recovered, we are given to understand that an explanation is to be made to the House that may cause a little fun. It appears that at one of the recent caucuses in reference to the Abolition Bill, Sir Cracroft unburdened his mind pretty freely in reference to Sir George Grey, and the observations he then made, which have found their way into print, are said to have given great offence to the member for Auckland West. A knightly row on the floor of the House, is by no raeann improbable,