PARLIAMENTARY GOSSIP

Te Aroha News, Volume VIII, Issue 490, 19 July 1890, Page 4

PARLIAMENTARY GOSSIP

THE HUTCHISON CHARGES. The only subject that gave promise of affording literary pabulum yesterday was the meeting of the Hutchison Charges Inquiries Committee, which was arranged to take placo at 10 a.m., and which had to bead journed without transactingany business, lor reasons already stated. While Ministers on one side express greatest confidence in everyone of Mr Hutchison’s allegations being disproved, Mr Hutchison appears to bo equally assured of the strength of his case. The report of the Committee will, consequently, be a serious surprise to one side or the other. There is, by the way, a somewhat singular affair to bo explained in connection with this matter. It is asserted that the revised proofs of Mr Hutchison’s speech, as supplied to the Premier, did not contain a verbatim copy of the charges made by the former, and inquiry is to be made as to how certain alleged alterations, erasures, or omissions occurred. The passages in question having an important bearing on the inquiry now proceeding. ASYLUM FOR THE BLIND. In connection with the establishment in Aucklund of an asylum for the blind, Mr Goldie has directed his attention to a matter of somo importance. He proposes to ask the Minister for Education on Thursday next whether in the event of an asylum for the blind being established in Auckland if the Government will transfer the blind children now supported by them in the asylums for tho blind in Sydney, and Melbourne at an annual cost to the colony of £575, to such institution, upon tho same terms and conditions as those which now exist between the Government and the institutions aforementioned. ANOTHER RETRENCHMENT MOVE. Messrs Goldie and Reeves(Canterbury) are jointly preparing a resolution to be submitted to the House for the appointment of a royal commission to go into tho whole question of the reconstruction and reduction of tiie Civil Service during the recess. The idea is to have a commission on the same lines as the Royal Commission of 1880, which consisted of Messrs Kelly, Pharazyn, Douglas and Saunders, to go right through the colony, for tho purpose of making inquiry into the subject to enable them to prepare a reliable report for presentation to Parliament. SUNDRY PETITIONS. The Petitions Committee M to Z is likely to have a lively time on Thursday, when they propose to take into consideration a claim made by E. Mahoney, formerly of W'ellington, for £4OO or £SOO compensation in respect of plans prepared for certain public buildings erected at Dunedin. The petitioner failed to obtain any remedy by taking action in Court, and brings the present petition on tho ground that ho was deprived of the fruits of his labour by technical objections raised by tho solicitors for the Crown. Tho solicitors on both sides and the whole of tho jurymen are expected to give evidence before the Committee. The potition presented by Mrs Schnackenberg, of Auckland, praying forrepealof the Contagious Diseases Act has now been put in the proper form, and tiie Petitions Com mittee report thereon that this matter being already before the House, they have no recommendation to make. MORE PENSIONS WANTED. Tho sub-leader which appeared in Thursday’s Star on the subject of pensions to Civil Servants, has attracted con- ; eiderable attention here, and has induced some of the members to investigate the subject. In addition to tho case of Major Campbell, mentioned in tho article, there are at present bofore the M. bo Z. Petitions Committee two other claimants for what would probably come under the head of fatpensions. .Judge Macdonald, formerly R.M. at Auckland, and more recently Judge of Native Land Court, is one, and Colonel Stapp is the other. Colonel Stapp is to bo retired from the Civil Service as an officer commanding the volunteer district of New Plymouth, being over 65 yeai s of age.

ANOTHER APPEAL FOR DISSOLUTION.

The “Post,” referring to the persistence of the Ministry in declining to accept the dictates of the Opposition for a dissolution of Parliament, says : —The object of the Ministry is to prolong their own official and irresponsible existence until next April or May. They want to ensure to a Parliament elected for three years only a practical control of tho finances, and through themselves of the administration of tho affairs of the colony for well-nigh four years, llesistanco to such an unconstitutional attempt to usurp power is justifiable on every moral and political ground. Most extreme methods of obstruction may be properly and commendably used to defeat political conspiracy of such a character, and even if the House does get into Committee of Supplj at the close of the present debate a most determined stand will be taken to carry tho conviction homo to the Ministerial mind that the constitutional rights of the people must be conceded without further evasion or delay, and that an acceptance of limited supply is tho only means open to them of avoiding further humiliation and disgrace. The sooner they learn this the better for all parties concerned. They may, if they are sufficiently lost to ail sense of propriety to do it, prolong the agony for a few weeks, to tho greater scandal of Parliamentary institutions ; bub unconquerable time is fighting against them, and tho day is already within measurable distance when his scythe will solve tho difficulty and resolve the present House Into its original elements.