PARLIAMENTARY GOSSIP.

Thames Star, Volume XVII, Issue 5203, 19 September 1885, Page 2

PARLIAMENTARY GOSSIP.

[By Telegraph.] (from oub own coeiiespondent.)

Wellington, Last night.

The House was occupied this afternoon with another discussion on the San Francisco Mail Service, and all the old arguments used in the previous discussions were gone over again. As you will see from the report supplied to you in the ordinary way, the resolution moved by Sir Julius Vogel was agreed to. As I write, the Supplementary Estimates are under consideration, and the Committee is stuck-up over an item of £10,000, being a subsidy of £1 for £1 on rates levied and collected within Counties containing one or more goldfields during the year ending 31st March, 1886, in excess of f d in the £1, exclusive of rates under .the Crown and Natives Land Eating Act, 1882 and 1883. The Committee are of opinion that this is an attempt to reinstate in- the Supplementary Estimates what was struck out of the Local Bodies Finance and Powers Bill for the benefit of the goldfields, and. coifsequently the Committee have their backs up, and we are likely to have another goldfields' fight to-night. At the present moment Mr Pyke is making a characteristic speech, in which he is contending that miners are being so greatly persecuted that the House might as well define it a criminal , offence to dig for gold.

There is very little to do after the Estimates are finished, and to-morrow the House will sit at noon to consider bills to come from the Legislative Council, and the Appropriation Bills, and prorogation should take place on Monday. This day.

The Committee only got through about £40,000 last night, and as there was strong opposition shown to the goldfields notes, which appeared in two places on the estimates, progress was reported after the first votes were got through, although the House meets at noon to day, it seems almost impossible that the business can be finished to night, for there are several free conferences to take place yet between managers from both houses, and the Land bill cannot be disposed of in five minutes. The prorogation is not likely to take place before Tuesday or Wednesday. Mr Pyke has given notice of the. following motion, " that in the opinion of this House it is not only desirable but absolutely necessary in the interests of the public welfare, and for the completion of the unification of the colony, that a proper system of local government should be devised and formulated by Ministers, and brought down to the House in the next ensuing session, and further that copies of proposals to this end should be widely circulated by Ministers during the recess, and before the nest meeting of Parliament."