The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1909. PARLIAMENT IN SESSION.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2634, 16 October 1909, Page 4

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1909. PARLIAMENT IN SESSION.

It is now ten days since Parliament opened and so far nothing has been done—that is, nothing of a practical nature. The Ministerial announcement —miscalled “the Governor’s speech,” for all that His Excellency did was to mumbl rather in audibly what someone else had written—has been delivered and ever since members have been engaged gravely talking around that uninteresting address. For all that one can tell this useless discussion may last yet another week. Then will come the Financial Statement, which will evoke another debate in which the same ground will be covered again, and by this time Christinas will be approaching and members will be thinking more of holiday festivities than of the public business. Some time, we suppose, our people will muster up sufficient courage to abolish the futile and costly debate on the Address-in-Reply, which has come to us as a heritage from the British Parliament. It serves no good purpose, but costs the taxpayer a good many thousands of pounds. It provides the leaders of the political parties with an opportunity to engage in half-serious banter, the. loquacious with a chance to air their oratory, and now members with a suitable occasion to get off their maiden speeches. So is “Hansard” filled. Not only are the salaries of seventy M.P.’s and fortyfive Legislative Councillors going on all the time as well as the wages of innumerable flunkies and hangers-on with all sorts of other expenses, but a staff of shorthand writers is busily engaged taking down the words of wisdom that fall from those Solons’ lips. Then there is a large staff at the Government printing works, and the net result of it all is that “Hansard” appears. The fact that the general public never sees “Hansard” and never wants to see it, and that only a small proportion will even read the abbreviated press reports does not seem to trouble our legislators one iota; they still perseveringly plod through this dreary, farcical debate. Every subject under the sun is handled, nothing being considered too big or too little for the occasion. The Premier has been playing a congenial role in assuming a great show of indignation at the alleged fact that the wicked men on the Opposition side of the House have been slandering the country and injuring its credit. He doesn’t produce one tittle of evidence of the kind that would satisfy a Stipendiary Magistrate for a moment. All ho attempts in this way is to read some newspaper articles containing reflections upon the Dominion’s credit, but these do not necessarily implicate the Opposition. No one who knows Mr. Massey will believe that that gentleman would, merely for party purposes, injure the country’s credit, and the Premier is entirely unjustified in making such an insinuation. If Sir Joseph is really serious on this matter we may pertinently point out that those Opposition politicians, newspapers, and bank managers who have, during the past twelve months, been telling the people of Now Zealand some wholesome, if unpalatable. facts concerning the country’s finances are deserving of a good j deal more praise than the Premier, who

tried to mislead the people by bis ridiculously optimistic utterances, and then cleared out to England, leaving his colleagues to handle the unemployed trouble as best they could with an empty purse. However, all this talk is idle, anyway, because Sir Joseph, according to his own statement, got the million he brought back with him-from London so easily, and generally found the Dominion’s credit so good that the villainous Masseyites cannot have done it so much harm after all. Coming to the lesser guns we find the naval scheme, the defence conference, the timber commission, the civil servants, all subjects of their aimless discussion. On the land question our socialistic friend, the fiery Mr Laurenson, got so excited when first one and then another got up and pronounced for the freehold that he issued challenges to all and sundry to debate the subject with him from the public platform. But his opponents were too wary. Having just come through a political campaign they did not feel disposed to leave to popular clamour the affirmation even of so just a cause as the freehold in opposition to the plausible and wily member for Lyttelton. It is on this question that the only item of real interest has been said, for. the Premier has announced That the Land question will he threshed out fully during the session. This means Government measures on the most vital issue on hand at the present time and we shall await with interest the 1910 phase of a policy that is given a fresh variation by the present Government whenever it comes up for consideration.