ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 186, 16 November 1910, Page 3

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT

(From our Parliamentary Correspondent) Wellington. November 12. A WONDER OF WONDERS. _ It is a wonder of wonders this Licensing Bill. Last week it was a frost. Now it is a galloping race of excited runners, none of them anxious to talk, all bent on passing resolutions. The big tiling in front, of course, was not in front when the Hoiise met to try and get round it by a spasmodic movement of the limbs frozen so hard last week. The Prime Minister rose with a suavity that . quieted all apprehensions anil calmed all hearts. Refore he had done with his announcement of the determination to divide the formidable double issue into two independent appeals to the electors the palpitating hearts grew still and the careworn eves became clear. When he sat <lown the smiling House proceeded to get the two issues apart without loss of time, and after a little humming and hawing, something after the style of the beauty who, in saying that she will never consent, holds out her hands with frank admiration of the daring of the young man who has proposed, ended bv passing the concli- [ tion of twice fifty majority on both issues into law. There were two divisions which served to show the mixed character of the Bill's support, and the attenuated nature of the Opposition. V\ hen the. Bill found its way through committee at a late hour, the genera) opinion among the relieved men trooping home like sehoolbovs released after a weary spell of class, was that the trade had got the best of it. It had not got <"11 it wanted, namely, the buttress of no-license no-liquor, but it retained three-fifths and it got rid of reduction and it has no fear that the National Option will be ever anything more than a dream. Economists are already taking advantage of the Premier's warning to ask how in thunder are we to get = the, million of revenue which Prohibition makes so light of, and the trade pays. Where indeed? The practical voter will not do anything in a hurry. The Lords? Well, it is impossible to say what the Lords will do. But as men of the world they will probablv vote the National Option. Let it not. be forgotten that their majority voted for "the ''bookie" when the Government asked them in 1907. It is likely that the Government will ask them to vote this issue, and it is more than likely that they will, in that event, vote it straight. At the same time let it be understood that Tiobody believes for a moment that prohibition will ever be carried in the Dominion. Still we shall be playing with edged tools if we get this undemocratic clause on to the Statute Book. * * * * A SURPRISE PACKET. Gaming has given us a surprise like unto the surprise of Licensing, inasmuch as there has been no flood of talk. Legislation, by exhaustion, has produced' a flow of business fairly well considered: The changes announced have been duly made by the House. Chief event, the execution of the writhing bookie, was a. rather tame affair. The culprit was found to have 710 friends. When dealt with by resolution earlier in the session he had two in the lobby with him. But this time no one so poor as to do liim the reverence of calling for a division. The Lords will bury the corpse under a decent monument of open confession of the error they made in giving the defunct his short and merry lease of life. Sic Transit! * * * ♦ WATER'S FINAL FLUTTER. Water had a final flutter in the Lords as anticipated when the motion of Mr. Wigram stopped the Order Paper with a sort of informal menace. It was a "leery" document. It began with a note of congratulation to the Government, and it passed into a vote of no-con-fidence with the most determined courtesy. Its language reminds one of the "mildest-mannered man that ever cut a throat." The Government having been ladled with the butter, was to have been told that it was wanting in the elements of prudence and that it was embarking on a pioneering project with a view to discovering the solution of many engineering problems now quite obscure to the general average of engineers, and sealed books to the highest ranks of the experts of the world. But there was on road to forgiveness—only one. Let, the Government concentrate on one scheme—Coleridge of course—and throw all the others over until that one is proved right and then all may be well. ' The Council did not see the force of this tactic at all. It was pointed out to Mr. Wigram, that as all roads lead to Rome, so there are many roads that lead to successful harnessing of water power. One member showed that in the world there are at the present moment some six million horses of power * * * * ELECTRICALLY HARNESSED, ambling along doing good work, paying fairly good dividends on the two hundred millions tliey have cost to get the straps on, and the surcingles. There are therefore no problems and there is no pioneering. All possible problems of a general nature have been solved long ago, and the pioneering has been passed into history, and the pioneers, such of them as are not buried, are flourishing in purple and fine linen, and drinking the wine of manv consultations. As for local problems, there are none Mr. Wigram was told. At Hauroto, for example, it is a lake, and all engineers know how to take water cheaply out of lakes. At Coleridge it is the same, because the river additions to the scheme belong to later on in the programme. to the part which is not included in the two and a half millions covering the present scheme. At Teviot it is iust a matter of taking water out of a bin- river troubled by neither shingle nor anything else, presenting no problem but the problem of cost, which is easily ascertainable by means of a share ot the £OO,OOO set apart by 'the Government for the purpose. At Kumara there is the existing race to be commandeered, and all the other, water powers of the district are known and their conditions ascertained to be simple, as A.B.C. from the engineering point of view. At Akatarawa the local trouble is nothing, neither is it at Makuri —just a gorge of three miles with a fall of 140 feet in the distance and an idea! site for a dam and head works, with as much ease in the estimate of the cos!-, as there is in cutting cheese. Waiksiremoana has a I local difficulty in its subterranean clian

uel, but that when <oived can tlirnw light on no other locnlitv because there are none troubled simihuiv. But if Waikaremoana fails, there is the alternative at Te Reinga, some dozen miles away to the nor-east towards Gisborne, and the problem there is -> waterfall. Now Niagara has tang-'it the world ail about the art of breaking in water horses of that sort, and it is unlikely that Te TWnira bv Tiniroto will add anything to the store of professional learning. Kaituna is just a n'.aee between t.wo streams, n n d the t.vo lakes—Rotorua and Rotoiti —which thev drain. No difficulties of head works' no trouble of any kind whatever, only just the trouble of measuring arid estimating cost. Transmission has been mentionec I in this connection. Now this; is -tlxf

200 miles. Northern Wairoa, the last of the nine schemes now before the country, is a waterfall also, and can have nothing to teach Niagara. Therefore, on the whole there are no more loca, problems than there are general problems to be- waited for to give Coleridge the (ino start, so sophistic-ally tried for. Under the circumstances it is not surprising that the Council threw out the resolution. All is once more serene in Aquapolis. * * * * THE ETERNAL HTNE. The rest of the business may be spelled H.T.N.E. When the spelling is done, the session will be nearly so. For the rest we are marking time, clearing order papers as fast as may be without much talk and little energy. When Hine and his ' works get behind there will be some talk. Till then, Adieu! I