REPORTING.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.°]
your last Saturday's issue you give an instance in which an M.P. (Mr. AVatkin Williams) had to be " his own reporter." Some of my friends were much interested in endeavouring to get an amendment inserted in the Leeward Islands Confederation Bill, but so ill are Parliamentary proceedings now reported that I did not even see any notice of the Bill having gone into committee, but was astonished to see a line stating it was " read a third time and passed," and remained iu entire ignorance of the question having behn mooted until we received a note from Sir M. 11. Beach, Bart., saying that he had moved the amendment in ques- tion (one charging the expenses of coolie immigration on the local instead of the general revenues), and that it had been accepted by the Government.
Would not a newspaper devoted almost exclusively to reporting Parliamentary debates and proceedings answer ? Surely it would have a large circulatiou! There might be difficulties in bringing it out early in the morning, but I should say it might come out at midday ?
The miserable way in which debates are now reported, or rather left unreported, is probably more injurious to the political life and well- being of the nation than any one other thing well could be and if nothing else can be done, I beg to suggest that our Government follow the example of that of a colony in which I resided, and pay one of the daily newspapers to report tlie debates in the Legislature fully, it would be publio money very well
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