THE FUTURE, the speaker said if he were gifted with the powers of Cassandra he could not tell that. If Ministers addressed the public they were careful fco say that their opiuions were not those of the Ministry, but of themselves individually. The jast utterance of Mr Stout was to the effect that he would not encourage the wild schemes of the Colonial Treasurer. He (Mr Pyke) should saythat the-Governor'sSpeedh would embody the magnificent visionary schemes of Sir Julius yogel, and wind up by saying that it was not proposed to put them in operatiou at the .present time, or at least only in a small part. He went up to Wellington as much in the dark as the man in the moon when the light went out—(laughter),—and he could only say that his vote would bo directed entirely, to the best of his intelligence, for the good of the country and of his constituents. They must trust him in all or not at all. A member on the scene had to he expeditious'and resolute In deciding, and could not wait until his consti tuents called a meeting. He himself had been burned three times, hung once or twice, and drowned, but was not much the worse for it, and they might be sure that neither popular

threats nor Ministerial favours should draw him one inch from the path of duty. One other thing he must touch on—our

PENAL LAND LAWS, as they might be termed. There were the agricultural lease aud the deferred payment, the perpetual lease, the pastoral deferred piryment, the rural deferred payment, the small grazing runs, special settlements, homestead system, and no one knew how many more. He agreed with Sir George Grey iv thinking there was not a man in New Zealand who understood our laud laws; and he would say, Wipe them all out, and begin afresh. What puzzled him specially was seeing them all so full of penalties. In all directions there were snares and traps set, some one of which one must fall into. He would have free selection after survey, and then deferred payments—nothing more. The speaker passed on to deprecate the action of the Government in stopping assisted immigration, and the ineffective manner in which it had been resumed. 