POLITICAL NEWS AND NOTES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 130, 10 September 1910, Page 3

POLITICAL NEWS AND NOTES.

THIS fcASP BILL. . ty. Telegraph.—Bress Association. •WsUingiton, Last XLght. The Land Bill continues to emuse a fermentation in the 1 orbits, bat nothing has occurred to-day to enable any opinion to be formed as to the likely results. Tiere is a revelation, however, in many opinL.is', which are unexpected, considering the quarters from which they emtr.iate. For example, Opposition freeholders take the view that the Bill is ] a reasonable settlement, and Government leaseholders show signs of close agreement with that view. The fact points to a new factor of settlement, which seems to be a growing tendency to regard the question of tenure as subordinate to the question of opening at once land for settlement. To give details of various opinions wouij be a hopeless task. They lose th-miselvvs in detail, with the result that eloquent protests against particular points fizzle down into a genera! idea that, in a matter of such complication, the proper solution is to make the beat of it in the general lines in the Bill. The upshot is really that the Bill requires to be very much studied, pondered and considered. The Bill | is safelv stowed away with the Lands Committee, which will chew it over long enough to let the outsiders digest things —it may be weeks. There is a grave

CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS. The Council sent down the Crimes Bill the other day with an appropriation clause unsheltered by the usual precaution—it was not printed in antique typ_e! Mr. Ma*sey discovered this "constitutional o.:'a'a'.Te," and there is a grave ■discussion about the next proceeding. The antique type will, T fancy, be provided, and all the horrible consequences will be averted. The Bill will not be sent back to the Council. THE EXHIBITION BILL.

That body had another long discussion to-day about the Exhibition Bill. This time someone wanted to collar any profit that might lie made, so that it ought to be saved for some sure purpose, but Dr. Eindlay pointed out if the profit (which, he said, was never made by exhibitions) was to be thus diverted from the consolidated fund, the Government might not make any advances. This reduced the malcontents to bedrock, and the Bill sailed through.

MUCH TO DO ABOUT LITTLE. In the Lower House an instructive report came up from a committee. Two men had asked for some redress in consequence of a disappointment. The canvassers of an insurance company had misled them with extravagant promises about a fortune. The committee, while declining to make any recommendation, declared the moral of the ease, to be that people ought to be prevented by their business instincts from putting too much trust in the wily and embroiderous canvasser. The House actually spent an hour on this grievance, and ordered the report back to the committee. It looks like a relief from the tension of the Land Bill. The rest of the time was devoted to the Hutt railway duplication, which looked like a. little more relief from the same Land Bill tension. Hours were spent, and if one might judge by the uproar, there might have been a Ministerial crisis; but it was blank cartridge on both sides.