WELLINGTON.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 960, 24 July 1877, Page 3

WELLINGTON.

[fliOir THE CORRESPONDENT OF THE PRESS.] Wellington, July 20. Parliament opened yesterday with the usual formalities; at least, perhaps not the vs\nal formalities, for the Sergeant-at-Arms, who precedes the Speaker to His Excellency’s presence in the Council Chamber, bearing the mace, was yesterday conspicuous by his absence, and arrived only in time to head the retreat to that Chamber where the mace will find its resting-place till the happy hour arrives when Mr Speaker will be summoned again to attend the prorogation. The Ministry undoubtedly achieved a success yesterday in His Excellency’s speech, for if ever there was a speech to which no exception could be taken or amendment offered, it was thatwhich Ministers provided for the occasion. Before this letter reaches you the address in reply will probably have been assented to, and the business of the session commenced in earnest. At this early stage it is hardly possible to offer any opinion, even in Wellington, as to the prospects of the coming session, but I venture to think it will be short and uneventful. The Treasury clerks have been working long into the night for weeks past to close the accounts for the past financial year, and their labors have not yet ended. But, as I telegraphed to you, the Premier is likely to make his statement early next week. This, I am happy to inform you, will not bear the melancholy aspect that some journals have anticipated. The revenue has certainly not reached the estimate by some £50,000, but nothing like the £200,000 which has been stated as the deficiency. On the other hand, the revenue will be larger than that for the preceding year, showing, notwithstanding the reduction of expenditure and the prophecies of. the Opposition, that the country is still advancing; and, foremost of all, the railways will show an increase on the estimated revenue of some £30,000.

Of the proposed legislation, the Native Lands Bill takes precedence. As tins Bill has been in circulation some time, and fully discussed by the public, I will not trouble you with its policy; but as I understand it will not be made a Government measure, and will receive very violent opposition from many of the Northern members, I do not expect to see it carried. The Counties Bill, though in the Governor’s speech referred to as merely remedying defects in the Act of last year, will contain a provision making the adoption of the Act compulsory on the whole country. Tins of course to Sir George Grey’s eyes will he a most unjustifiable attempt to fetter the actions of “ posterity but unless the Opposition assumes some more definite shape than it lias at present, the measure must be carried. The Revenues Bill will be a consolidation of all the Revenue Acts of former years. The Goldfields Bill will likewise be a Consolidation Act, and a most urgently needed one, of the thirteen Goldfields Acts that now lie scattered in a hopeless state of confusion through our statute books. The measure should be a good and practical one, as it is framed on the recommendations of the goldfields wardens who met in Wellington to discuss the question some months back. The enrolment of the various police lorccs over the colony under the Armed Constabulary Act will render an amendment of that Act necessary; and tills, too, has been framed upon the practical recommendation of the various inspectors who met here in February

last. The Crossed Cheques Bill, which will already have been telegraphed to you as having been introduced, is merely a reprint of the English Act of last year passed on the same subject. Of the Education Bill I shall say nothing until I have had an opportunity of reading it; but it is upon this that perhaps the longest, and certainly the most important, debates of the session will take place. The generalisation of the land fund and insular separation are mere words, and in the present formation of the House can never become law. That they will have to be raised, and that their importance in the eyes of humanity in general, and the Anglo-Saxon race in particular, will be urged and hotly debated, there can be no doubt; but if the Canterbury members stand firm the “ antagonistic friendship” of Otago and Auckland can avail nothing.

Until Macandrew arrives and the Ministerial programme is fully before the House, the Opposition can decide upon no definite course of action. Small troubles are brewing, and of these the question of the Hinemoa will form one of the first. It is a quest ion that does at present look strange even to Grovernment supporters. That a boat of the Hinemoa’s size and comfort should have been in constant use all the year for minor purposes, and should have been laid up at the very time when her employment would have saved the country some hundreds of pounds, for the sake of economy, is a problem in the policy of retrenchment that. Mr McLean will soon be called upon to solve. Wellington has this year received its visitors handsomely, with most beautiful weather, so bright and clear that it must even compel the leader of the Opposition to take a less gloomy aspect of affairs. It is understood that this state of the weather is owing to the high state of efficiency to which Captain Edwin—familiarly, the “Clerk of the Weather” has brought his department. Orders for fine weather to attend the opening of the House were issued, and to the present time have been ably carried out. The town has put on its carnival attire. The shop windows are filled with the most tempting of retail merchandise. The cabmen have cleaned and brought out their best broughams. The streets already look better filled, and the place gathers quite an air of importance from the sight of honorable members walking the footpaths arm in arm in new clothes, gloves that have been carefully put aside since the last prorogation, and the cares of a nation striving to be brought into expression by means of a scowl and a wrinkled forehead.