ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 290, 19 September 1874, Page 2

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

' In our concluding paper under this heading we wish to draw out with a little more? ' clearnessthe, action of the .Goldfields members during the session just closed—more par- / ticularly dealing with, our Otago men. The—, task we. have set ourselves.is, we.find,. somewhat a herculean one—-not that: the doughty •: ■ •" • deeds and acts of prowess displayed oii Qirr be-- . Jialfaresojnumerous, but because in a.buay ses - sion,' wh&e papers'have, accumulated with sof Wonderful a rapidity, .it is difficult to.'detect signs of action at all. Our natural '.exclama- " ' tiOn, after wading through sixteen' numbers - of ' Hansard,' is, " What;- this' enormous haystack and only one needle—indeed, if there be one! How arS we to find ' Opening Speech, as we all remember, began . with Royal congratulations. and record of Gubernatorial visits', and a placi'd benediction' '• over.'the increase of half-castes—at least, we suppose a half-caste is a European and native mingled,—congratulatory acknowledgmerits of the_ receipt of so many immigrants '—nothing'.at all being said of those who took a trip Home and came out again free as new chums, or of Mrs. Howard's £l'a'-head guari !,i ;; i . dianised Asiatics. Congratulations, ' • just a Uttle prbmature, considering 1 the -uri.' timely death—of the establishment of /thfe' ! : American line. Even, indeed, was Polyitesia ' referred to : alnd-lioped' for:"' but after iali this; and with_all this, not a.woid of the v; loped" golden wealth' of the 1 Colony Whoke' 7 /'' Parliament was going into session. ' ' : Mrl ; 1 Shepherd- opened the ball by an enquiry as to - the obtaining of letters arriving by sea on Sundays at Dunedin post office. Mr. T. L. S., , Was also anxious: to .know what' became of in- ~ ; sufficiently stamped letters—a very laudable curiosity. He need riot have troubled to have gone to Wellington to ascertain. ■ ,Mr. O'Neill the same day—the first sitting day of the session—sounded the Government,as to their intention in reference new Goldfields Bill. O'Neill was also anxious at the same time to know what action the Government had taken during the recess to- . wards the abolition.or.reduction of the duty ~ on-Australian wines. Goldfields legislation and Australian wine duty reduction! How earnest Mr. O'Neill is in his representative duties. The following members were appointed on the Goldfields Committee: Messrs. ißradshaw, J. C. Brown,. Curtis, Williamson, Fyke, Harrison, Macandrew, O'Connor, O'Neill, T. L. Shepherd, Sheehan, Tribe, White, Steward, and -Richardson. -Mr. Mervyn had a suggestion to make—veiy valuable, no doubt—that the Government should give some information with respect to the reports circulated in the Press, that certain persons were engaged as agents for the purchase "Of native land for private individuals, thereby defeating the object of the law passed during the previous session. On the Bth of July we. find him successful in carry- ?"" ing a motion—" That a return be laid upon - the table fof the quantity of .land sold or " otherwise ..disposed of,, during.'a .period 0f.., twelve months ending '3lst March, 1 1874,* in ' the various Provinces of New Zealand; suck . return to specify, if possible, the number of ; new settlers who have purchased land during .that period, and the quantity of land so purchased by them." He said, "What he wanted to arrive at was-whether our land system was essentially sound; whether it was desirable to part with large quantities of; land to parties at a nominal price, or whether ■ ; it was not the. duty of the State to hold, the land in its own hands until there was more ■ • certainty of settlement upon it." We are. afraid that capitalist squatterdom isnottobe • defeated by moimtains of figures, how carefully soever compiled.—The next day Steward, of Waitaki, asked whether the attention of the Government had been drawn to the difficulty which has arisen on the Maerewhenua Goldfield, and the case pending between Messrs. Borton and M'Master. and Howe aud party; also,- whether a pure to deal with riparian rights would'be - introduced. Mr. Vogel replied "thatsearch had been made and no papers on the subject discovered," thus_showing the worse than lax indifference of the Provincial .Govern- - ment where anything connected with goldmining is concerned. 7 This very matter = has been brought before the Superintendent I. and

for twelve months' back. During last session of the Council it was pressed Government publicly, yet in July, 1874, there is not a paper, not a document to »Q found,in Wellington bearing upon the taattef in dispute. It was too much trouble to . instruct a clerk to write to Wellington ex- . plaining the urgency of the case, although a petition sighed by nearly 1,000 miners had been presented to the Council, and although a .Committee "had reported two sessions running that the General Government should be asked to appoint a Commission to enquire into the whole question of water rights on the Goldfields of New Zealand. Mr. Bradshaw tod Mr, O'Neill, we observe, supported the Government in the introduction of the Regulation of Mines Bill—a Bill which we do not know whether it has passed or not at present till further papbrs.comotfc o hand—the former observing that he thought it would be found very useful in Otago. There had been a gfeat number of accidents in Otago, and the people and the Press had from time to time palled out for a measure of this kind. -The , blatter of the alteration in the excise duties ■ IS too difficult and lengthy a subject to more \than refer to here. It is sufficient for our purpose to mention it, as no doubt to Messrs.. Macandrew and Pyke the Otago Distillery Company owe a good deal of the large amount of compensation they are secured by the Bill, -The story- of Mr. Shepherd's Goldfields Bill, is now historical,- and need llot Again be referred, to in detail.—Mr. Harrison succeeded in obtaining an order for a return to be prepared, showing ,the amount paid, by the Colony to Magistrates and their officials,, and the revenue derived from theiT -Courts.r~—J)dr. Curtis' introduced a Goldfields Bill to the effect that the delegation of Goldfield duties, should be extended to, and , the responsibililies placed upon the Provincial Executive, instead of solely the Superintendent.——We are tired, and so will be those of our readers who have followed us so far, of following ' Hansard from beginning to end. : There is no single intelligent utterance on any Goldfields difficulty by any one member except, curiously enough, Mr. Yogel himself, who, by that intuition which seems so remarkably conspicuous'in him, while freely confessing he knows nothing himself of the questions on which legislation is asked for, yet perceives "that the dissatisfaction in the.. Provinces with Provincial Goldfields administration shows an utterly erroneous form of administration, which no single Government,. .is answerable for but that all have drifted Into."-—Mr. Shepherd, as we have pointed out already, did his best service in the mat- . ter of river pollution—that best being hon- ■" estly done and being fatal to the cause Mr. . Shepherd has struggled to comprehend and to'be anxious to serve, if for no other reason than that of gratitude to a constituency that, ■ remarkably, has bolieved in him as a fitting, •representative, although not identified in any way, so far as we know, except politically, with the Dunstan district. Mr. Bradshaw and Mr. Pyike we confess not to understand. They probably thought that the position the Government took up was impregnable and the time inopportune for decided action. We cannot tell. Perhaps they were deterred by the disrepute all Goldfields matters were and naturally must have been in owing to Mr. Shepherd's zealous want of tact. The fact' remains that on Goldfields matters they were mute, although Mr. Bradshaw was fat too food, a representative to remain idle, and usied himself in questions of social statistics that future years will thank him for. -Mr. J. C. Brown, of Tuapeka, gave what was expected from him—very little. Owing to his restless activity, always for the good of his district, he has, without much ability and' certainly no powers of persuasive oratory, trenched himself in at Tuapeka in a position where he could defy all comers, and has worked well for his district for many years, contributing in a great measure to the success of that district we alluded to last week. * Of Mr. Mervyn we shall say little or nothing. He has dnnewhat his constituents asked him—put his little question' about the Sludge Channel and about the Clyde railway. Perhaps if we had asked more we might have got mace. Certainly he has not burned with ardor as Mr. Murray, and suffered in pocket to telegraph for the opinion of his constitu-. ents on important questions. Wo have freely reported all he has done publicly, even to his little enquiries about natives and suggestions about land returns. On any matter of the least importance his policy has been a v masterly inactivity—a discreet silence. We cannot judge him, nor do we wish to. It - appears that the district has been, to all practical purposes, unrepresented, while with regard to the origination of any measure for the relaxing of special Goldfield taxation, or special Goldfield burdens—disputed questions, where the Goldfields as a whole have • to fight, the weak against the strong—the member for Mount Ida's sudden penchant for : .masterly inaction has preserved his feathers unruffled from the ardor of his impetuosity in attack or in support. Tn our opinion the , 'Goldfiolds members—without hardly an ex-ception-rin perhaps the most important session ever concluded in New Zealand, have, played a part, in nearly every case, subservient to an ulterior purpose, shameful to themselves and disgraceful to the constituencies they represent.