HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3582, 19 June 1880, Page 2

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

Wellington, Friday. The House met at 2.30 to-day. THE BABBIT NUISANCE.

In replying to a question, it was stated that Government recognise the ;<nportance of getting rabbits upon bush and other reserves exterminated, and had 'he question under consideration. " TE ABOHA LANDS. The Waste Lands Board had power, under 48th section of the Act, to .withhold from sale 7,000 acres of the Te Aroha block for the purpose of selling it to Grant audFoster, or persons brought out through their efforts ; bat the Governor required to approve of the rule, and in this instance that approval had not been formally granted. THE DEBATE OJf SIB GEOBGB GREY'S AMENDMENT.

Mr Moss resumed the debate on Sir George Grey's amendment, which was taken as a no-confidence motion; He reviewed the financial proposals, statl lg that the total deficiencies amouat to £995,000 in round numbers, and to make good that deficiency the Treasurer had

recourse to the Public Works Fund, when that fund was exhausted. He would like know to what would bo done if the late Public Works Loan had not been floated. He would like to know in what position they wou!d have found themselves placed. They had the country literally bleeding at their feet, and such being the case Government ought to welcome an Opposition organised for the express purpose of discussing and advising respecting this serious state of matters. Instead of that they had shown a disposition to stamp out the Opposition, and sit silently in their benches, instead of entering heartily into the debate. The taxation they proposed was to be taken from men's necessities, and the natural consequence would be, if they got it in that way, they would loae it in another. Apart from additional taxation, the expenditure in excess of estimated revenue was £583,001 After making their calculations, it would be found that a deficiency of £133,000 si ill existed. To meet that £50,000 was to be taken off the departmental salaries. That was a most unsatisfactory proposal. It simply meant that some underpaid persons would be still further ground down and oppressed, while the better paid officials escape. The remaining deficiency of £180,010 was proposed to be manipulated in some sort of an extraordinary way, so as to transform it into a nominal surplus of £41,000. The plan propos- 1 was a mere subterfuge, and he called upon them to be honest, and frankly owned that the deficiency had to be paid. He denounced the Waimate Plains expenditure as being the employment of some 6CQ men for making a road into a swamp which was utterly useless. Mr Bryce denied the assertion that the road was useless.

Col. Trimble spoke in favor of the Government, stating that the Property Tax agitation going on throughout the country was simply a political dodge, and that many of the men by whom it was carried were men who could not possibly be got at by the tax at al'. Specking of the land tax he compared the lpnd tenure of the home country with that of New Zealand. The former was originally held for military sen ices which were no longer required, and that condition was commuted, very properly, into the money consideration. There the case was different. The land was sold at its full market value, and as such it had no more right to have exceptional taxation than any other marketable commodity. Debate interrupted by 5.30 adjournment.