ABOUT PARLIAMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, 15 September 1915, Page 4

ABOUT PARLIAMENT.

A FIGHTING SCOT.. By Telegraph.—Special to Daily ITewS, Wellington, Last Night. Mr. John McLaclilan, whose death was made the occasion fdr the early adjournment of the House this afternoon, wad a notable figure in four Parliaments. Ha first sought legislative honors in 1900, the year of tho maritime strike, when ha ran Sir John Hall, who could boast of an unbeaten record extending back to 18155, to within a hundred odd votes for the lilies mere seat, and gained more /ame, as he was wdnt to say, than he would have done by beating a score of smaller men. I;i 1893 he won tho Ashburton seat against Mr. J. 0. Wason (nowa member of the British House of Commons), but he wus defeated by Mr. E. G. Wright on seeking re-election in •1896. He recaptured the seat in 1899, and held it till 1908, his return in 1006, when hi* chance appeared to be hopeless, being due to a, ten minute speech delivered by Mr, Beddon while tho train waited at the Ashburton railway station. RIVAL STATE ENTERPRISES. ' ■ ' Sir. Ell, the member for Christehurch South, appears t6 have good jjround for complaining of the Railway Department and tho Tourist Department competing against one another for such pickings at are to bo got out of the travelling public. In his first annual report the new general manager proposed that thp Railway Department should set up a tourist office of its own, with a fully equipped stall' for the arrangement of tripl and the sale of tickets, and there bpiflg no National Cabinet in existence at the " time the Minister readily agreed with this duplication of publio lerviees. Now, Wellington is treated to the spectacle of two expensive offices carrying on precisely tho same business within thre# hundred yards or so of one another, and Mr. Herries insists that this extravagant competition shall continue, because ha will not have the Tourist Department interfering with the business of the rail, ways. Mr. Ell finds some difficulty in reconciling this attitude with the appeal! of the Ministers colleagues for th.e prac« tice of public and private economy, ' , DEFENCE. The Dominion, whioh has never tr«4t«d the Hon. James Allen with the consideration it has extended .to his Reform col- ' leagues since he made some very pointed remarks in the House concerning the premature publication of a certain d«> partmental return, is taking the' Ministers severely to task for not sending reinforcements to the front in greater numbers, and at a quicker rate. It quotes Lord Kitchener, Mr. Asquith, and Mr, Llayd George as to tho urgent need for every man that can be spared taking his place in the firing line, orwHorever else he can be useful, and demands that Mr. Allen shall give effect to-their appeals. The Evening Post takes up th» cudgels on behalf of the Minister, but does not make very good ÜBe of then, because it declines to disbuss what' it calls its contemporary's "obvious" error*," which are not obvious at ail, and does not explain that Mr. Allen -'-js doing all the Imperial authorities, with a 'full knowledge of the position, liavo, suggested he should do. The Minister may have many and grievous faults, but a lack of zeal in the, discharge of his obligations to the Mother Country is ant among them.