POLITICAL LARRIKINISM

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 133, 25 July 1941, Page 4

POLITICAL LARRIKINISM

IT is with mingled feelings of disappointment and disgust that those who have 'listened in' to the Budget Debate, in the New Zealand House: of Representatives, have beard the unlimited indulgence in personalities, spite, accusations, arguments, libels and bitterness, which seems to take up 99 per cent of. the deliberations of our legislators. It was bad enough when there was no war on. but to hear all this cheapening trash at the present juncture, when such serious issues are at sta.ke is to say the least a slur upon our intelligence and a poor advertisement for our much vaunted War Effort. Above all else, these are days which demand construction and whole-hearted co-operation.- The country is prepared and, willing to give such, yet when people are interested enough to tune in to the Parliamentary broadcast their ears are insulted with the cheap petty wrangling between the party's which compose our Legislature. Frayed tempers, hot feelings, imagined injustices, and the rattling of old bones, are alright in times of peace; we can listen to and possibly enjoy them ,but to-day when so much depends upon unanimity it becomes but a hollow mockery and a wicked farce.