THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2334, 24 March 1892, Page 3

THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.

(Bulletin.) Governor Onslow, of Maoriland, just before he quitted the scene of his toils and his salary, flatly refused the demand of the Ballance Cabinet that a batch of fifteen nominees should be seait to the Upper House in. ord.er to make that asylum, foj politioal dead-beats a workable institution. The people of Maoriland have elected for years past a series of the most Democratic Assemblies that ever sat in any Australasian province. The Democratic movement is no sudden burst of popular frenzy, but the deliberate, expression of public opinion, confirmed over and over again by the great majority of the natiqn. The Assembly has passed a large number of urgent reforms, and the irresponsible oligarchs of the Council have rejected them all with the calm regularity of a machine which throws out a bill every time a penny is dropped in the slot. Therefore, either the system of Representative Government must vanish altogether out of sight and the 50 or 60 gouty, battered, irremovable moneygrubbers of the Council be allowed to constitute the. nation; or else the Upper ! House must be reformed—which it can't be unless it passes the measure for its own reformation; or it must be abolished —which is also impossible unless it formally enacts its own abolition ; or, last of all, it must be swamped with a fresh batch of Democratic members. It is hopeless to expect that the Council will reform itself, and still more hopeless to suppose that it will abolish itself, and as Governor Onslow has just expressed his polite regret that ho doesn't " see hia

way " to appointing fifteen new members, and has thereupon gathered up his coronet and his carpet-bag and the"'%eque for his back salary and fled from thty scene, the Council is left master of the situation. PADDY'S INDICTMENT. (From the Bulletin). At one thing at laste ye bould Englishmin shine— And the divil at that couldn't bate yez— Yez don't know what I mane 1 Then, begob, I'll explain: 'Tis the way that yez murther yer h's. From the little gossoon in the sthreets wid his broom To the Salvation Ginral that praches Of the " grate wrath to come," while he bates the big drum, Divil a one but mishplaees his h's. When Shah, King, or Kaiser to visit yez goes Shure yez make the most ileigant spaches, An' yer aldhermin, dressed in grand robes av the best, Wade up to their knees in dropped h's. When yez crass the salt seas, an' they make yez J.P.'s, On the Binch av the law-courts they sate yez, Shure the dhrunk in the dock gets a terrible shock Whin yez foine " 'im" five bob widout h's. Whin as mimbers yer sint to the grate Parl'amint, And yez open yer mouth in debate, yez Would dhrive a man mad; but, me sowl, it's too bad The way that yez slaughter yer h's. Some say from the lost thribes av Israel yez shprung, While others the shtatiment impaches ; Bedad, thin yez wanst might have shoken the same tongue From the throuble yez have wid yer h's. Mister Renan, the famous Frinch writer, yez see, In one av his gratest works taches That the Essanians who lived near far-famed Galilee Were as bad yerselves wid their h's. Faix, it's thrue, I suppose ; shure the likes av him knows, And maybe the fact will elate yez And help yez to prove that yer just one remove From those Haybrews who murthered their h's. Now, don't make a to-do, shure yez know that it's thrue; Be aisy, dear, friends, I inthrate yez, Hould yer whist, don't be makin' a show av yerselves And sthrewing the flure wid yer h's. Taueangi. Hamilton, Waikato (M.L.).