ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 163, 19 October 1910, Page 3

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

(From Our Parliamentary Reporter.) V.Vltinrton. October I.), week 15 win whisky and water. This week the dikf part of the essence was water pure and unadulterated. It is dillieult to imagine that mere water should have received such a jubilant welcome. We have been talking ever since of the splendid things everybody is going I to do with electric power everywhere. l>ut before going oil' into practical details the House listened almost spellbound to the unfolding of the tale of the electric system offered for the Dominion's acceptance and certain fortune. The general impression of all those dazzled legislators was of satisfaction that the Government had redeemed the promise of the Budget. It is not a mere beating of the drum after all. It is an egg that has been beaten and its breaking the other night showed it to be full of meat; the meat of TO.'JOO horses all harnessed to electric machinery and racing over the Dominion for bare useful lite at most profitable speed. Xeedless to go into detail. The Prime Minister cfid that, showing how every district is to be provided for, all but one. 13ut when the next day the members for that district entered prompt remonstrance they ware quieted with the assurance that they had not been forgotten, only overlooked. They would be all right in the Public \\ orks Statement presently. * * * * The debate that ensued on the second rcadinj was worthy of the new policy. The critics wanted to know would the big cities with their electric plants be ruined by cheap Government competition; they opined that the gas companies might as well shut up shop; they thought that perhaps a good many .hopes of the extensive use of the new supply would be disappointed. Mr. ,-Massey announced that he would at *the proper time move that the amount of the power supply proposed shall be reduced by onehalf. Only one mail, however, made any declaration against the principle of State control f.nd monopoly. » * * * AVoy,!'! the farmers u=? the supply? Straightway there w&S heard moving triumphantly along the lobbies a story of a I'anterbry farmer jrllO Jl«s toy some time been the'proud possessor of ail cite tiic installation. It milks his cows, lights his house, works his machinery, washes the dodics of the family, and irons tliem, to say nothing of drying them—does everything possibly on a farm, exc-ept cutting the chaff. " This it cannot do because the stacks are far apart as well a.3 numerous, and the trick of carrying power 011 flexible wires as in electric lighting of rooms from place to 1 place has not yet been discovered. | * * ■» * ! This story caused visions te arise of many farms furnished with power, of the abundance of light in the bowses-,- and the cottages and men's huts, oi the ma-

chinerj mid the traction all operated' by electric power. Visions of small ts\TOSaccompanied v.itli well-lit lialls and libraries, as streets and roads, and lights.*' in all sorts of out-of-the-way places. As for power, it was in every house for every conceivable purpose. Just before the second reading ail enterprising showman had brought and kept on exhibition in one of the committee rooms an electric plane which maintained a big kitchen lire, boiled cofue, baked bread and toasted it, heated flat iron, gave genial warmth to a foot-warmer, and did many other things. This proved the advance agent of popularity for the liill. What was said and done and thought may be imagined »o well that it need not be described any further. Sufficient that the lobbies were in a ferment. * * » # Next day there came a frost. It appeared in the columns of the Post in the shape of a letter from an electric engineer—uie well-known Mr. Black, of Wellington and the enthusiasm froze like the surface of a pond in the Arctic \\ lieu the wind blows from the north. This authority said that the distances were all prohibitive except in • places where there were no customers for the current. He added that the prices announced for the sale (probable) were moonshine, but further added that the schemes were evidently crude, and had never been thought out,"much less studied in the engineering fashion. We are all now looking for trouble, demanding details from the Government, asking for authoritative pronouncement of the distance which is economical, and for the details of the estimates of probable revenue. liow many customers are we to expect for the 70,C00 horse-power and

where are they likely to be found when wanted if All this will, it is expected, be duly noted and explained by the Department at the proper time. It is well! Jf it is not, then so much the worse for the scheme. In the meantime we are to remember that the Minister of Works lias said that should there be a failure to meet expectations the Department can always make a fortune by manufacturing nitrates. It is true that the agricultural chemists of the Dominion have pronounced that these are not wanted here, but it is also true that they are very much wanted elsewhere, and that it pays to take a dearer article from Peru to London and therefore must pay to take a cheaper one from the Fortunate Isles to the same destination. The Department, the Minister said, has the plans of very successful works in Xonvay and Sweden, where the surplus power of electric installations is worked in this way. We are informed that the power ac Lakes Te Anau and Manapouri is alone equal to millions sterling of nitrate value in a year. With these few remarks we pass from the absorbing subject of water. We shall see as to details wanted what we shall see presently.

The rest of the business has not been exciting. The Lords have debated the Defence Bill and enjoyed the spectacle of tiie .Maori member wanting to be trained and many ready for immediate of the world in arms. He would 'be ready if necessary to do the job without arms because he has confidence in the Maori ability to beat everybody at everything, in any time, and every time. Mr. Wi Pore, in fact, justified the Defence J Jill by showing (1) that there is plenty of warlike spirit in the Dominion; (2) that the same W.S. requires much training and more discipline. But the Lords made a jood showing generally in patriotism and" the spirit of defence. It is a change from 1007.. when they slumbered through the speeches of the proposer and seconder of a resolution for military training and woke up to crush it by overwhelming force. * * * * The only other sensation of the week ih the development of the Hine Tammany business, which is now to be referred to a tribunal of two Judges. It appears that Sir Joseph was ''sparring for wind" all the time. He wanted the charges formulated before granting the demand for two Judges. That being refused lie offered the committee and before the committee he ran his man to earth. -Mr. Hine having formulated, the Premier at once took steps to send him before the Judges he wants. How he is

to prove that Messl'S >.UaJOI, JVIIIUK. WW C0.,-who are commission agents —and in tliat capacity arc said to have taken commission from the sellers of estates to the Government through t'.ie Land Purchase Board—did anything to implicate the Board and the (iovernment appears to be a formidable task. But that is Mr. (line's funeral, perhaps, not anybody elso's.