PEARLS FROM PARLIAMENT

Free Lance, Volume I, Issue 5, 4 August 1900, Page 12

PEARLS FROM PARLIAMENT

MR TOM MACKENZIE was watched closely on Tuesday night for some sign that would indicate whether he was going to support the Government or Opposition. But he was too wary to show his hand, or else was conscientiously independent in his policy. He first voted with the Government, next with the Opposition, then with the Government again, and finally with the Opposition, after which he went home evidently well satisfied with things. • • • The closure is a decided anomaly in a Democratic Parliament. But the report of the Committee, recommending its adoption, is almost certain to be carried. However, is such a muzzling of speech not a menace to the liberty of the people ? Moreover, the democratic party will not always be in power. Therefore, is it not putting a powerful weapon in the hands of their opponents ? • # * Premier Seddon, probably with the fear of six weeks addition to the length of the session, took vigorous exception to Major Steward's proposal to have a Public Works as well as a Financial debate. The Major urged his proposal strongly, and then finding that the Premier was absolutely against him, voted docilely with the Premier, leaving his supporters aghast at his want of consistency. Needless to say, there is to be no Public Works debate. • * • Tom Mackenzie to the electors of Waihemo after his return :—": — " You had a behest sent you from Wellington by the atitoerat of New Zealand (Mr Seddon) to put in a certain man, and that was supported by paid emissaries perambulating the length and breadth of the district. You are threatened to have your freedom taken away, but you have shown you will not be deprived of your freedom by anyone in the country." • • • George Fisher describes the Press Association as "that huge monopoly," and declares that starting with a capital of £42 7s 6d, it has, in two or three years, drawn, by way of premiums, no less a sum than j£Bsoo, to say nothing of the monthly and quarterly working payments. That is something like a monopoly. The Premier professed to be shocked at these figures, and says he will reform the Press Association, but th,ajj,j.i.s only so much flam. As a considerable shareholder in the New Zealand Times, the Premier is himself largely interested in the Press Association monopoly, and wouldn't seriously dream of interfering with, it, or offending the wealthy newspapers that own it. By the way, the Dwnedin Star (a wealthy newspaper itself) says : — " The monopoly of the Association is indefensibly excessive, and the entrance fee far and away too high. The terms of the Association ought to be liberalised, and that quickly ; the more quickly because the amendment of the libel law in some degree depends upon the modification of the monopoly." » * * Bellamy's still survives, the annual vote as to its continuance — as a liquor- selling place — having resulted in a total majority of 33 in its favour. The vote is a secret one, and a good many members who voted against " the drink " did so, it is said, as a protest against the expensive and unsatisfactory way in. which the institution is carried on. But there should be no secret voting in the House on any question. The taxpayers have to meet this deficit on Bellamy's, when there is one — and there have been such things — and the country has a right to see how each representative voted. Much of the loss on Bellamy's is due to the expensive dinner provided daily for the benefit of about six or seven gentlemen, worthy " Lords," who alone are "full boarders." There is a £5 a week chief cook and assistants, and a big staff of waiters, and to make up for the loss on the dinner members have to pay stiffly for small refreshments. • # • The teetotallers are said, by "the unregenerate," to cause much of the loss, for they take a single cup of tea a day and eat a pound or two of biscuits and quite threepenny-worth of cheese. One prominent teetotaller used, it is well known, to

drink his cup of tea, eat his pound of biscuits and a huge wedge of cheese, and then calmly empty the contents of a big basin of lump sugar into his pockets to take home. "No wonder," said the whisky drinkers, " the show doesn't pay." Mr Wilford : There are collecting agencies which collect debts on percentages. They have no risk, they go to no expense, they have their fees out of pocket paid to them, and they use the whole machinery of the law for the purpose of compelling people who owe money to pay that money, without themselves being in any way concerned with the result of the matter at issue, and cloaking absolutely the actual plaintiffs. # * * There is a great deal of force in the Premier's opinion that imprisonment for debt forces a great many men, who shrink from such a possibility, into the Bankruptcy Court. The present writer knows an instance where a man was regularly paying 10s per week out of a small weekly wage to extinguish his indebtedness, when a debt-collecting agency .came down upon him, and, a crushing order was made upon judgment summons, with the alternative of imprisonment. Then a friend came forward, paid the Insolvency Court fee, and the debtor — against his own will — was whitewashed of debts that he would gladly have paid if he had been given breathing time. But he will always feel what he considers the shame of having been a bankrupt. * * » It was too bad of the Opposition to protract the Gisborne Harbour Bill discussion last Thursday afternoon, so as to delay the departure of the Government party for the Hornsby " social " and presentation. Mr Hornsby looked as if he would like to eat Mr Pirani and some of the others. However, after enjoying the game for a while, the opposition discontinued their sport, and the party got away safely. We hear that the social was a very enthusiastic and successful one, that the addresses were very, complimentary to Mr Hornsby, and that a purse of fifty sovereigns was presented to him.

— That M.H.R. Barclay's contemptuous allusion to a respected southern editor who had criticised him was an insult to some of the most worthy citizens of New Zealand. Another abuse of Parliamentary privilege — That Trooper Charlie Enderby, reported dead in South Africa, was a fine strapping young fellow — a splendid rider, and for some years carried off many of the leaping competitions at Taranaki A. and P. shows.