PARLIAMENTARY.

Temuka Leader, Volume I, Issue 87, 16 October 1878, Page 2

PARLIAMENTARY.

The Timaru Harbour Board Endowment Bill passed its second reading in the Upper House on Friday. The Bill, as introduced, proposed to grant an endowment of 50,000 acres of land to the Board, but the clauses containing this provision were withdrawn, and the only endowment vote given is foreshore and lighthouse sites. The Milford, and several other Harbour Bills passed the Committee on the same day. In the Lower House Mr held wick asked why, and on whose recommendation, the Government preferred ordering engines and rolling stock from the United States instead of Great Britain. The Minister for Public Works replied that Mr Carruthers had reported in favour of the American engines, and they had been found more suitable than the English, Mr Sheehan, speaking on the question of hospital endowment, likened it to the harbour endowment scramble. He condemned the general rush for.waste lands. The Premier said he would pledge the Government to prepare a measure during the recess dealing wich hospitals and charitable institutions upon a rational basis. Several local Bills, asking for the hospital endowment question, were shelved. The Broomhall settlement scheme was discussed, and the Government of 1876 roughly treated for selling land to which they had not a title, and Mr Broomhall, who had come out in the guise of a philanthropist, was more than half suspected to be a mere speculator. In the Council, on Monday, Mr Waterhouse spoke strongly against the Land Tax Bill, affirming that property has already to bear more than a fair share of taxation. Yet he would vote for the second reading, that demagogues might not find in the rejection of the Bill an

xcuse for exciting the passions of the people. Mr Buckley disliked the Bill, but should not oppose its second reading. Sir Dillon Bell would support it, as direct taxation had now become necessary.

In the House, a question asked by Mr Gisborne led to the Premier stating that there were cases in which trust estates granted by the Crown for certain purposes had not been applied to their proper uses, and that in other cases little or no benefit was being derived from valuable endowments.