PARLIAMENTARY.

Kumara Times, Issue 3047, 9 August 1886, Page 2

PARLIAMENTARY.

A MYSTERIOUS PRIVATE LETTER. BLAIR'S REPORT ON THE MIDLAND RAILWAY. INSURANCE, STAMP ACT, AND DISTRICT RAILWAY BILLS. [from our own correspondent.] Wellington, August 7. In tho Honse of Representative, Sir G. Grey, asked the Minister of Lands the date of a private letter said to have been received from Mr Larnach when he was in England inviting the Premier and others to take shares in the New Zealand Agricultural Company, the date on which the letter was received here, and the name of the person to whom it was addressed. The Minister said the question was somewhat mysterious. The Lands Department did not file private letters, and had no record of this one. He bad no knowledge of such a letter. It seemed to be addressed to the Premier, who, therefore, should have the letter. Mr Larnach said the hon. member | would have acted more honourably, if j he wanted private letters produced, to 1 ask the owner for them. He (Mr Larnach) denied that he had ever written such a letter; but if he had, he said, it was nothing to do with Sir G. Grey. He would have an opportunity of speaking further on the matter. The Minister for Public Works, in answer to Mr Seddon, said the Government would have a number of additional copies of Mr W. j^k lair's Report on the Midland Railway printed and circulated. The Government Insurance Bill was passed in Committee; also the Stamp Act Amendment Bill. The District Railway Bill was further considered. THE ABOLITION OF GOLD DUTIES BILL. [The Wellington correspondent, telegraphed on Friday last the following : In consequence of the Legislative Council having twice this session refused to pass the two bills passed by the House of Representatives relation to the abolition of the gold duty, a committee consisting of the Hon. Mr Larnach (chairman), Messrs Pyke Guinness, Montgomery, Conolly, Seddon, Samuel, Atkinson, Fraser, Fergus, were appointed to search for precedents in order to ascertain and report on the rights and privileges of the House of

Representatives with regard to the imposition and remission of taxation, and of duties payable to the Crown. Tho committee met to-day, at which all the members exoept Atkinson and Seddon were present. The following resolutions were adopted. "Your Committee have diligently seiu-ched for precedents, and: inquired into the usage and practice of the Imperial Parliament, to which the General Assembly of New Zealand is an analogous body, passing and exercising the same rights and privileges, have th« honour to report as follows: " 1. That the right of granting aids in supplies to the Crown is in the House of Representatives alone, as an •essential part of its constitution, and the limitation of all such grants as to matter, manner, measure, and time is in it only. "2. That, although the Legislative Council has exercised the power of rejecting bills of Beveral descriptions relating to taxation by negativing the whole, yet the exercise of that power by the Council has not been freqnent, and is justly regarded by the'House with peculiar jealousy, as affecting the right of the House of Representatives to grant supplios, and to provide the ways and means for the service of the year." '•That to guard for the future agiinst an undue exercise of that Power by the Legislative Conncil, and to secure to the House of Representatives its rightful control over taxation and supply, the House has in its own linnets the power so to impose and remit taxes and to frame Bills of Supply, so that the right of the House as to the matter, manner, measure, and time, may be maintained inviolate. The following resolution will be considered by the committee on Monday next, when tbey will bring up their report:— " 4. Your Committee therefore recommend that the practice of the House of Commons, initiated in 1861, and since continued, of embodying in one bill the whole of the financial arrangements for the year, should be adopted by the House of Representatives."