ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 139, 21 September 1910, Page 7

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

DOINGS OF THE WEEK. (By our Parliamentary Correspondent). September 17, 1910. Peace, payment of debts, reform of criminals, an excursion into the realm of education give a mark of special ikind to the Parliamentary week that ended last night. A few local measures thrown in, with a Ministerial joke, much resented by the victim, almost complete the tale. It is a tale largely non-political, that is, non-party. The balance sounded strong of this keynote. This balance was made up of the two send-offs to Mr. Fowlds on his departure for South Africa to represent the Dominion at the opening of the Union Parliament. Of these one was given by the Legislative Council to the departing guest, and the other was given to the whole legislature by the Prime Minister in that guest's honor.

The wonder of this non-party key-note | was simply immense. The Council function was deliberate, long drawn out, a 1 Saturday night fixture as becomes the department of leisure. Half a dozen speeches, mostly by the guests (the Prime Minister, Mr. Fowlds and Mr. Carroll), one from 'Sir Charles Bowen and a couple thrown in from the rank and file of the Council made the time pass most agreeably. Such terse, vigorous, appropriate, genial speaking and of a high order it would be difficult to compress into the time; it was just the sort of thing to prime our representative withal before sailing off to say the right thing to the Africander. That he will say it well when he gets there Mr. Fowlds proved by the samples of oratory he gave his hearers in return. The humorous element was supplied by Mr. Carroll. He gently told the Council that crime would be no more. Had not the Attorney-General said so — that destitute persons would shortly find riches; that philanthropy would obtain a share of the millenium? He bubbled over with unstudied fun and genial fancy; he passed to graver things, telling of the hopes and the well-being of his race; he struck the Imperial note royally in a sentence or two; he lingered over many things delightfully. Everyone was sorry when lie finished. His fine imagery and his original phrases touched with a charming quaintness here and there suggestive of much quiet thoughtful reading lingered in their memories as they departed. Altogether it was an evening to be remembered. * * * *

The other function was bigger and briefer; it had to nick into the ordinary supper adjournment and the representatives arrived weary with a small stonewall over the Education Bill. But there was no "party" in the stonewall and none came into the banqueting, chamber to interfere with the harmony of the oysters. Here the speaking was also excellent, though necessarily more busi-ness-like, for there was not room for anything more than the business in hand. Mr. Fowlds was primed with the right ideas and again he responded with the right' kind of sample. When Mr. Speaker rose to make him the presents tion of a loving cup on behalf of th House he appeared to arrive at th height of an agreeable surprise. It wa a handsome cup in silver,. handsoniel; chased, elegant, as well as splendid. Th choice of seconder of the toast of th evening fell on the Leader of the Oppo sition, and Mr. Massey came out of hi, shell more brilliant and sparkling thai any oyster of the hundred which per formed the same ceremony; but none o: them gave the guests half the pleasun that. Mr. Massey did, and. that is saying much. He was genial to Mr. Fowlds; he was just to the great occasion; he thoroughly endorsed the selection made by the Government and he was careful to endorse emphatically their determination to have the Dominion represented at the great African gathering. He struck the prevailing key-note, which was of admiration for the splendid action of the Imperial Government in adnjfitting the defeated Boers to the Empire and in his forecast of the splendid use the Boers and Africanders would make of the big opportunity thus afforded to them. The Prime Minister said all this before Mr. Massey and said it well, brightly, rapidly, with a deep feeling as of one watching a great constitutional departure in the history of the Empire.. The two speakers struck the same note and] everybody went back to business much refreshed by the happy interlude. |

The immediate result to the Parliamentary work was the collapse of the. stonewall aforesaid and the through committee of the Education Bill bo much discussed; that one could see' was better for Mr. Fowlds than the loving cup, even had it been filled with champagne, but, hush! he is not of the order that drinketh such beveragestherefore we must leave the "fizz" out of the cup. Luckily it does not matter, ' for there was plenty in the speeches. | On the whole a very fine function on the part of the Legislature. If is the first I time the two Houses have sat together | this session. One could not help hoping | that if ever they have through some | change in the- constitution to sit toI gether they will do it as sympathetically i and as well.

One thing was unfortunately omitted —the shadow of a great name was spread over these proceedings, but no mention was made of it. It was the name of Sir George Grey, who ought not to be forgotten when the subject comes uppermost of admitting the Boers and the Africanders into the Empire through the gate of federation. He it was who actually'proposed, so far back as 185!), a scheme of federation which was agreeable to both Boer and Briton. He went so far as to propose it to his Ministry (he was the Governor of Cape Colony and the adjacent States) for introduction to the Legislature.

Grey was a universal favorite in that land, trusted, throughout by all colors, creeds and politics. Boer and Briton and Kaffir were ready to do anything he asked them. For example, the Boer element about the time of the visit of the Duke of Edinburgh (as a midshipman in the Euryalus) had thrown out the proposal of Grey—in his absence—for the erection of the great breakwater now so famous and so useful in Table Bay. But Grey took hold on his return, went about among the people, said a few. of those magic words of which he had such ample command, and the breakwater passed into being with rapidity inconceivable.

Again, the Boer Republics were independent —those were the days of narrowness in Downing street—but when Grey visited Bloemfontein, the capital of one of them, he proposed to the leading men the establishment of a college for secondary education, persuaded them that the want of education was the bane of their people who, were likely to remain hewers of wood and drawers of water, showed them how to set about the work of laying aside .endowments, getting profeseors, and establishing the nucleus of a library. A stranger he was in the technical sense, but they took his advice with alacrity and built their college in the

manner he had' commanded. They called it the "Grey College" when it was built, and many times did they send him woni of thanks and information of its pro gress in the days of his residence in this Dominion.

Again, there is a rare and valuable library of his presentation at Capetown. Thus it came to pass that Crey having said the suggestive word- -that is, having lucidly and convincingly tdked o! the blessed combination of locil autonomy with Imperial Federati ui, yivrg just the measure of freedom demanded by the most exacting, the whok of the people concerned were ready to do the thing he wanted. But 'Oownsn'j-street took fright. Downing-street in these days was affected with the anient spirit of .barrenness which regarded colonies fs things troublesome and to b° docently got rid of after a period of senseless domineering . Downing-street chose to consider Grey's action as insubordinate, contrary to instructions; and Buhvar Lytton, with the fine pen we u?ed to admire so much in his novels in our young days, actually dismissed him ami recalled him with ignominv interlarded with fulsome adulation of the great j things he had done.

i- The people of all Africa who knew e what those things were, who knew how e he had stopped a tremendous Kaffir res bellion and made all subsequent attempts p ft that direction impossible by breaking e the great pfrjver of those races; who krfew e How" he had served the Imperial cause - Ay diverting the China army to India to ? help in the suppression of the big Mut--1 iny; who were aware how he had re- ■ embodied—Oie German legion settled on [ African lands for service in India at that ! tremendous crisis; who understood the ; many ways in which lie had restored or- : der out of financial chaos, and brought racial antipathies to vanishing point; the African people who knew all these tilings were simply staggered by the action of the novelist Colonial Secretary, of the Government of Lord Derby. The Queen even hesitated to endorse such scurvy treatment of a great public servant. But blindness of responsible advisers prevailed and the mischief was done. * » * - * Luckily for Grey the Government that i did this thing was driven from office and their successors reappointed him prompt- ■ ly, and they did it at the suggestion of ' her Majesty. But unhappily they were just as blind' a;s Derby and his novelist Minister and they set their faces against the federation of the African people. The latter never forgot the treatment of ] their favorite, their honored Governor; j would have nothing to say to the fijoposals for resuming his subject after the " resentence had come to Downing-street. For fifty years the clock was thus put back. Had Grey prevailed, what would have happened? Rather, what would not have happened? We need not stop to go into detail. We know our Boer I war too well and everything appertain-: I ing to that regrettable episode of his- I torv. We can measure the millions that would have been saved, the bloodshed that would have been averted, the prosperity that would have had a career of half a century. Now Grey is not forgotten in Africa and he is not forgotten in New Zealand. Therefore it is well that the two countries should come to gether by their representatives at thr opening of the Federal Parliament which he was the first to suggest, and would, if his prescience had been appreciated, have established fifty years ago. Tf i'« unfortunate that this was forgotten in the send-off of Thursday night. i\o doubt Mr. Fowlds will make amends when he gets to Africa.

For the rest, Parliament has done wc'l. The Debt Extinction Bill has passed i lie •third reading in both Houses and after some small amendments pointed out as needful in the Council—lnpai the Council!—have been made by vJovarnor's Message, will be law presently. That is enough of itself to mark the se-'sion as memorable. What the pit'. : e creditor will say remains to be seen. We shall be disappointed if he does not approve. But as we are going to taper off borrowing till the practice disappears m fifteen years—though not by operation of ;his Bill—we may be in a posif.i jn shortly to do without 'him. Whether this turns out all right or whether it does not, this is the first occasion of our history that it has been said with some show of weliplaced confidence. What more would you?