CORRESPONDENCE.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1058, 6 April 1882, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

[We do not hold ourselves responsible for opinions expressed by our correspondents.'] TO THE EDITOR. Shi, —As I see by your leading articles that vou appear to take a great interest in the result of the division of the Imperial Parliament on the cloture question will you kindly inform those of the public in Gisborne, myself amongst the number, as to what the term cloture means. Is it a sort of white elephant which is of such an enormous size as not to be capable of being led through the gigantic entrance to the Houses of Parliament at Westminster ? Or does it resemble the sugar trophy recently sent from Australia for exhibition at the International Exhibition at Christchurch, and which had to be taken to pieces before it could be sent through the tunnel from Lyttelton ? Or has this cloture anything to do with the burning questions of the day now prevailing in Europe, viz., the Nihilists-cam-Lund League-cwm-Freethinker ? If such is the case then I hope you will come to my assistance and afford the public a full, free, and fair account of what the true interpretation of the term means. Although your article on the subject is the nearest approach to a lucid interpretation I have read, yet I must confess that I still remain in ignorance, and would like to have it clearly defined. Waiting a reply at your earliest convenience, I am, &c., Enquibbr. [The literal translation of the French word cloture (wo quote M. Wessely) of which cloturer is the active verb, is—enclosure, fence, sepiment, seclusion, or the act of closing. Taken in a Parliamentary light, it means the power of peremptorily closing a debate by relegation of the subject matter to be dealt with as in Committee.] —Ed. P.B.S.