NOTES FROM THE GALLERY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 111, 12 May 1871, Page 2

NOTES FROM THE GALLERY.

[By AN OBSERVER.] I am thinking of starting a subscription list, the. object of which .is to enable me to raise the sum. of £40 for the purpose of taking but an ' auctioneer's license for Mr. Wastney, unless, indeed, the present Government should feel inclined to place the amount on. that elastic sheet which is devoted to the Supplementary Estimates. The system of auctioneering to which I pVo\)«se that Mr. Wastney should devote his energies is a hovel one iv this colony, for it, is based upon the Dutch principle, namely, that the auctioneer should offer his .wares at a maximum price 1 and gradually, come - down until Ije finds ; a bidder. This course has been suggested to me by the action recently taken by the honorable member for Suburban North, who, af ter a' careful perusal of the Estimates, came to; the Council i;last week wiih a proposal that the departmental expenditure,! by; ;which; I '•' suppose he raeant-the/salaries of ;the officials, ;. should be reduced by.,, twenty, per cent., but finding that he could' not succeed in getting ) Or. bjd at .ihat^pi|ic.e jhe^r camp forward again last ingot* and stated that he waa"ipr^pAre'd''to :: i3ccept''a l re Idaction1 daction of £tjeen pcr t ; ,§©«<;:].■ .^ojjog,!, agoing ! but not yet gone, so that nest week we may

expect him to, put up the offices at a reduction of ten, and the following week, of five per, cent. If he doesn't get a bid at that price I really don't know what will become of him. He certainly adduced some very powerful arguments in his eodeavors to obtain bidders, one of which was that in the same propoi'tion that wool and flour had gone down in price, should the salaries of officials be reduced in amount, intending, I presume, to convey the impression that every Government officer should study the market reports to ascertain what his salary was likely to be for- the month. The problem offered for solution might be dealt, with in accordance with the rules of Simple Proportion, but, unfortunately, it is there provided that the two first terms shall be of the same denomination, and this would be impossible if Mr. Wastney's sum was set as he proposed it the other evening for it would read somewhat as follows : — lf an officer's salary is £200 per annum when greasy wool is fivepence three-farthiugs a pound, what should it be when flour is £13 9s. 6d. per ton ? I daresay, however, that the Council contains men who, when necessary, can rise superior to all the first rules of arithmetic in working out a calculation. On Monday evening Mr .Gibbs rose— and it wasevideut to all that he was duly impressed with the solemnity of the occasion — and asked leave to bring in the Executive Bill, whereupon Mr. Donne, who must have been reserving himgelf for the occasion, got up and made a furious attack upon the new measure and its proposer, aud he was so led away by his wrath that the Speaker, had. to call him to order, upon which he replied, and Mr. Luckie hacked him up m'saying so, that if what the Speaker said was right the Council had better shut s up altogether. Of course I didn't say anything or I should have been turned out by the Sergeant-at-arms, but I thought to myself, Aad if you are allowed to dispute the Speaker's ruling like that, Mr. Donne and Mr. Luckie, I quite agree with you that the sooner the Council is shut up the better. Then we had two cases of disputed paternity. First of all Mr. Gibbs said he was the father of his little Bill, and Mr. Luckie and some of the others, said he wasn't, and that it wasn't a bit like him but bore a good deal more resemblance to the Provincial Solicitor, and. after a good deal of talk about this, Mr. Gibbs said, well, after all, he didn't think\ he was his Bill's papa, but that tlie-- Solicitor was its progenitor, and then he turned the tables on Mr. Luckie and. said that he, at all events, was the father of that ugly little bantling that was born last year, and Mr. Luckie vowed and declared he wasn't, and said that every feature of it was the Superintendent's, and so it went on, and what with these quarrels and Mr. Donne's aud Mr. O'Conor's squabbles, I spent a very pleasant and instructive evening. I do believe that the Speaker will tumble off his chair one of these nights from an attack of Standing Orders on the brain, because they are always cropping up in some horrible manner, and preventing anything being done in the Council. Perhaps you are not all of you aware that the Provincial Council of Nelson is such an august, and important assembly that, in accordance with the wishes of Mr. Donne, who fought the matter out most manfully for two whole sessions, it decided upon adopting the rules of the House of Commons for its guidance, and this is the first session they have come into force; but now it is found, and some of the members seem tremendously surprised at the result, that the skin -of the stately ox won*t fit the poor little frog that ik trying to wear it^ but. that it works up into great big wrinkles which can't be got over, and every now and then the insignificant little animal that has rigged itself out in this strange dress is lost altogether, and the only way to get out of the mess is to suspend the hide until the tiny creature drops out of it,, and is once more able to breathe freely in an atmosphere that is more congenial to its limited capacities. I often have a great laugh to myself when I'see the dilemma the Council has deliberately placed itself in by the action it took in the previous sessions. In fact I don't thinkiMr/Kelling was very far wrong the other. -night, when he said that these Par r li'amen'tary Tules were a great nuisance, nor. did I disagree with Mr. O'Connor when he said that they should not allow the Standing Orders to istand/in their way, for it seemed to 1 him that they spent quite half of thejr time indiscusspg^them} However there is' one great comfort^ namely, that whenever you -find one of these Standing Qrd,ers, that took twp years to frame, interfering with you in any way, you can always get' but of the scrape by suspending; rt* ■;/Oa/ thejwhole; i-; Stan dung Orders are at the same time a delight aud a puzzle tpt". me./ a t '"i~' +\ ;>■'>'/ On Tuesday that great Ministerial measure 'tfae*' 'Dog BiiJ,">came ; dir tbrMdisciission, and there was an able and interesting debate on its merits, which

lasted for one hour and forty minutes, i*nd great was the oppositiou it met withr At this the Provincial Secretary wajAnuch aunoyed, and he justly remarked^m|t as it had not been opposed in the'stigHest degree when he introduced if, he laa not expected to find obstacles placedpin the way of its second reading, to; which Mr. Macmabon good humoredly replied' that they had nothing else to do, so they might just as well have a little talk on this subject, and Mr. G-ibbs used a classical quotation, which I thiuk was as follows: — " Satan finds some mischief still For idle hands to do." and this, together with a little snarling that took place between Mr. Donne and Mr. O'Couor, suggested to me another extract from the writings of that ancient author from whose works the member for Collingwood had quoted, and I was very nearly looking down from my elevated position and howling out : — " Let dogs delight to bark and bite For 'tis their nature to." but I am very glad I didn't, for I might have beeu accused of indulging in personalities. I suppose I was bothered about what took place that night, and didn't know very clearly what I was £ about, for when I got home and looked W over my notes I found that instead ofW heading them "Provincial Council" II had written over th<3m Provincial Kennel.; The Association of ideas' occasionally leads to very strange results. Last nighf the " Dog Bill " came on for the third reading, and after some discussion a division was called for. It was, as you may imagine, an -ajkious time for all parties concerned while* the bell was ringing, and the- clerk was peering at ihe egg-giass, for on the result of this division depended the fate of the Ministry, who of course must have instantly, had the Council decrd/d thot dogs were still to be taxed at the rate of teu instead of five shillings per head. Most nervously did I watch the operation of drawing the tickets from the box until at last the Speaker declared the result to be, Ayes 10, Noes 8. Once again did I breathe freely on learning that Ministers had been saved from defeat by a narrow majority of two. I commenced by sayins that Mr. \7astney had moved last night for a reduction in the departmental expenditure of fifteen per cent, but the Council wouldn't listen to him s and in the encounter he got rather roughly handled, so that when he was called upon to move another resolution he had on the paper he said that after tbe fate that had attended the first one he would withdraw the second, although I couldn't see what connection there was between the two, but I suppose he was so angry about it that he hardly knew what he was doing. After he and Mr. Shephard had had a little set to, ths Council went iuto the Estimates, and passed lots of them without any opposition, until they came to one item where the GrovernmeDt wanted to add £1S to a constable's salary, and then there was a division, but the money was voted, and as everything was going on smoothly I left the gallery, and I don't thick I shall go back there this wkek. J For remainder of news see fourth page.