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Manawatu Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3717, 27 September 1906, Page 2

The “ New Zealand Times” on Monday morning has taken fright at the trouble brewing over the Band Bill. The' paper has been weighing the possibilities of the opposition that is to be offered in a measure, in the course of a leader “It is reported, and with every appearance of truth, that the ‘ Freehold Party ’ in the House is considering certain drastic methods of preventing the land bill from becoming law. They recognise tha the Government is thoroughly in earnest in its intentions, and that in whatever shape the Land Bill may emerge from the operations of the Waste Lands Committee, no amendments infringing the cardinal principles of the measure will be accepted by the Government. We are not in the confidence of the Freehold Party, but we surmise that they may permit the Bill to go into committee since the Government defeat upon the second reading will carry with it dissolution, and this is an event less pleasant in their eyes than the wholesale adoption of the Bill. When party men in the House are profoundly convinced that this or that measure is evil, and opposed to the will of the country as they understand it, it is hard to deny them the right to obstruct it by every means permitted to them by the rules of Parliament, Obstruction, however, is very rarely justifiable, but we are not concerned with the general questions here. There are occasions when it loses most of its viciousness, but the obstruction -which is promised for the Land Bill cannot be said to be warranted by any special circumstances or considerations. A compact band of irreconcilables set

upon' a sedulous system of obstruction might easily delay the passage of any measure for a whole Parliament, and it is obstruction of this character which must be met.”