POLITICAL AMENITIES IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 70, 20 March 1877, Page 3

POLITICAL AMENITIES IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

For the leader of the Opposition to charge a member of the Ministry with being " unconscious for five days from the effects of wine and brandy ;" and for the accused, a Responsible Adviser of Her Majesty's Representatives, to retort that " the leader of the Opposition is at the present time living in open adultery with a woman," are little amenities which find no parallel in the so-called personalities of New Zealand parliamentary life. Such however, were among the many exchanges of Billingsgate during the recent no-confi-dence debate in New South Wales. Mr. Garrett, Minister of Land, the erring member of the Executive, took no pains to deny the soft impeachment, relying upon the efficacy of that style of retort expressed in the concise, but far-reaching, phrase, " You're another." Mr. Puddington, the leader of the Opposition, felt constrained to say "solemnly." on his word "as a man and a member," that the statement was untrue. Whereupon Mr. J. S. Smith immediately showed his estimate of tlie value of his honorable colleague's " solemn" asseverations, by declaring that " it is a fact, nevertheless." A regard for tlie properties of life restrains our representatives from such interchange of compliments as these, which we likewise extract from the reports of the debate already referred to : —Mr. Elhone said "he had made a charge against two Ministers, of whom the Colonial Secretary was one, but the lion, gentleman had not taken any notice of it. He meant the offer made to Mr. Hugh Taylor for his vote." Mr. Robertson, Premier ; -'Whoever says so tells a lie." Mr. M'Elbone :" He is more in the habit of telling lias than I am, Mr. Chairman. He is a notorious liar, and has been all his life."— Star.