THE CLOSING SCENES.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XLIX, Issue 12641, 31 October 1905, Page 8

THE CLOSING SCENES.

By Telegraph

(From our Special Parliamentary Reporter.)

WELLINGTON,. October 30. During the morning the House was husshed in the presence of death. Many of us remember the Nestor who, in the eanly and middle nineties, sat in a place of his own ..apart,, (honoured by both sides, casting in his lot with neither, giving hath the benefit of his ripe experience, unflinchingly refusing ...offers of office. In those days there were men wlho knew him better 'by the name of Nestor than .by the name of Saunders, which his father transmitted to him, but in those days there were still some who also remembered how strenuously imoompromisingly and nobly Alfred Saunders bad laboured to keep unsullied that name which he got from his father. They rem;bered him just as a temperance reformer, father of tfhe education system of Nelson, which bad given the Colony its leading ideas now em/bodied in the Education Act, superintendent of Nelson province 'by sheer merit displayed by & man among '■men, friend of the best (intellects who put the Colony in the earliest times on the lines which are now leading it to greatness, unseW fish as he >was strong-mentally and physically. Alfred Saunders built up by steady exertion a magnificent record. To this record from first to last the Premier in moving the usual resolution did full justice, and -when he spoke of the repeated opportunities of office which were offered to the old statesman who made history and wrote it, it was felt that a new chapiter in a distinguished life had been given to the public, a chapter adding to the acknowledged lustre of a fine career. What Sir Joseph Ward added about the plain simplicity of the life that had passed away, to-, gether. -witib. the other appreciative speeches of the various speakers, gave exhaustive completeness to the record placed in the archives. As members left tihe Chamber they felt that one of the few remaining links with the great past has been broken.

In the afternoon things proceeded much on the usual lines. A stranger would never have imagined himself listening to the business of absolutely the last day of tJhe session. Hence the delay in the Land for Settlement and Civil Service Classification Bills. The latter was knocked almost to pieces by a suggestion of ithe member for Wellington, which the Minister in charge was weak enough to accept. The result was an onslaught on the bona fides of the Government by the colleagues of the hon. gentleman. They wanted to recommit the BiK before the third reading in order to prevent the Government from evading the examination regulations of the iservice by appointing friends who after five years' service would get into the regular service. The Governmemt, not 'being ready to take ■such a slap, in the face, met the enemy fair and square and heat 'him on division. They will arrange in another place to get an alteration which will prevent them from doing that which they aver they never wanted to do. The Supplementary Estimates were supposed to be skirmishing about the bar of the 'House, and everybody looked for them when the Harvester Trust came in and the House went into Committee, a.7id had a picnic of the kind one enjoys in the first few weeks of the session. The astonishing thing is that it made progress till the dinner adjournment. ITEMS IN THE -SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES. Among the more interesting genera' items of the Supplementary Estimates I see £200 for special allowance each for the Speaker and Chairman of Committees, £100 for the Parliamentary inquiry into the forking of the Seddonville coal mine, £450 for the salary of the chief electoral officer, £500 (£1 for £1) for each of the Airifc Galleries in the fomr centres, £750 for expenses of of the St. Louis Exhibition, £500 expenses of Royial Commission in allegations of Mr Fisher, £8428 for " New Zealand's portion of -Pacific cable deficiency, £12,391 for infectious diseases hospitals (7 places), £25,000 on account of the £50,000 authorised for Oliristchurch Exhibition, £8000 (additional) for the Land Commission, making in all £10,500, about £1,000 for expenses under the

Workers' Dwellings Act, Crown lands portion.