THE NEW HOUSES, OF PARLIAMENT.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 241, 11 February 1888, Page 4 (Supplement)

THE NEW HOUSES, OF PARLIAMENT.

The ceremony of laying the foundation j stone of the new Houses of Parliament was,

like the unveiling of the Queen's statue, iug^e'd into the centennial programme tq till out its meagre outlines. ' The colony has not yet determined to build new Houses of Parliament, and no design has been , approved. In all probability the erection of the building will be delayed for many years to come, and the foundation stone will stand as a fitting memorial of the extraordinary want of preparation which has distinguished the whole of the Centennial arrangements. Except the Centennial Park, nothing of a permanent character will remain as a memorial of the event, and even the Park, although nominally declared by the Governor open to the public, is in such an embryo condition that several months | must elapse before people can be allowed ! access to it. The feasting and guzzling, however, has gone on without cessation, and the digestive organs of Lord Carrington and his responsible advisors must bo in a sadly diaorganisied stato. In connection with Monday's ceicmonial a Ministerial dinner was given to the Governors, Ministers, and other distinguished visitors from adjacent colonies. Sir William Jervois spoke as the representative of New Zealand, and in the course of his remarks announced that he was now "a bloated squatter." Whether his landed possessions lie in New Zealand or New South Wales was not made very clear; but from his employment of the term " this country" it would appear that your Governor has invested his money in Australian runs. Sir William, however, was not at all stinted in his praipo of New Zealand. "I believe," ho said, " I happen to be a Governor of the finest colony on the face of the earth," an announcement which was greeted with applause and laughter. He further said that in future years Now Zealand would become tho playground of Australasia, and that Australians would come <o regard it as **the centre of Australasia. " I may remark that these observations, so far as they tend to disabuse the minds of Australians of the all-prevailing notion that New Zealand is "played out und in a chronic state of poverty and distress, are well timed. It is perfectly astounding to listen to the remarks on the financial condition of New Zealand which one hears at every street- corner in Sydney. If New South Wales were itself particulary prosperous or its public finances in a passably sound condition, the tone adopted towards New Zealand might, perhaps, be pardonably ; but, in the face of its notorious deficiency of something Jike two millions sterling between the public revenue and ' expenditure in the past two years, and with tho shouts of the unemployed ringing in our ears, it ia rather cool ~to talk of the depression j in New Zealand. The fact is, New Zealand | public men have too long, for political pur- j posee, decried their own country, and outeiders are only too ready to take up and exaggerate the cry. One thing brought out at the Ministerial dinner was the hollownew of the effusive [ protestations in favour of confederation. The Hon. Thomas Piayford, speaking on ; behalf of South Australia, stated that the colony from which he hailed was not yet prepared to fall in with Victoria's desire for the abolition of intercolonial duties. Victoiia had built up its manufactures under a strictly protective tariff, and South Australia would insist upon getting on equal terms before it threw its ports open to Victorian wares. This feeling, in conjunction wiih the free trade policy of New Sonth Wales, offers serious obstacles to the early realisation of the Victorian dream of a Federated Australia. While Ministers and their friends were regaling themselves at Parliament Buildings, the citizens, under the presidency of the Mayor, held a banquet in the Town Hall. It can scarcely be considered a success, only about 130 persons attending. There Was, however, one feature of this celebration worthy of special notice, because of its singular absence from other public displays in connection with tho Centennial. The native-born Australian has, throughout, been studiously kept in the background, and Sir Henry Parkes, in his speeches, with a self-complacency which is peculiarly his orii, has treated Australian history as though ifc began not a hundred years ago, but somewhere about 1840, a date not far removed from the time of Sir Henry's own advent in the colony. Now citizens, instigated thereto perhaps by Mr Bibbs, trotted out several old Australians, one of whom, Mr William Small, was born in 1796, just eight years after the arrival of the first settlers. This old patriarch, who is a great-great-grandfather, and has 300 lineal descendants, gave some reminiscences of the early days. Tho teetotallers may make a little capital out of the fact that Mr Small has never tasted spirits nor smoked tobacco in his life. His sister, who -was the first; female of European parents born in the colony, died only a few years ago. Mr William Byrne, another veteran of eighty, addressed the meeting, and adduced some statistics of his own family in proof that the climate of Australia is conducive to longevity. The isolated examples of one or two long-lived families', however, are hardly an answer to tho statistics published in tho Centennial number of the Sydney " Morning Herald,' which prove from tho mortality returns of the past ten years that the pei-centage of deaths in New South Wales is 15-55 per 1,000, and in New Zealand only 11*33 per 1,000. In other words, a man's chance of life is more than a fourth greater in New Zealand than in New South Wales.