MR TROLLOPE ON NEW ZEALAND ORATORS.

Evening Star, Issue 3225, 21 June 1873, Page 3

MR TROLLOPE ON NEW ZEALAND ORATORS.

‘ I was often asked in New Zealand whether the line of parliamentary debate in that Colony did not contrast favorably with that which I heard in the Australian Parliaments. I am bonnd to say that at Wellington I heard no word to which any speaker of the House could take exception, and that this propriety of language was maintained while very hard things were being said by members, one of another. 1 his is, I think, as it should be. The life necessary for political debate cannot be maintained without the Saying of hard things; but the use of hard words makes debate at first unbearable, and after a time impracticable. But 1 thought that the method of talking practised in the New Zealand House of Representatives was open to censure on another head. I have never in any national debating assembly—nob even at Washington -seen so constant a reference to papers on the part of those who were spe iking as was made in this debate. It eemed as though barrows full of papers must have been brought in for the use of gentlemen on one side and on the other. From this arises the great evil of slowness. The gentleman on his legs in the House—when custom has made that position easy to him—learns to take delight in delaying the House while ho turns over one folio after another, either of manuscript which has been arranged for him, or of printed matter which ho has marked for reference. And then, to show how very much at home he is, while gentlemen are gaping round him, ho will look out for new references, muttering perhaps a word or two while his face is among the leaves—perhaps repeating the last words of his last sentence, and absolutely reve'lmg in the tyranny of his position. But while doing so, he is unconsciously losing the orator’s power of persuasion. I doubt whether Demosthenes often looked at his papers, or Cicero when he was spea > ing, or Pitt. Judging from what I have seen fr< m the strangers’ gallery at Home, I should think that a New Zealand Minister has learned to carry to an absurdity a practice which is authorised, and no more than auhonsed, by the usage tf our House of Commons. A Speaker, on observing such a fault, can barely call the effender to order, but he might have the power of putting out the gas. I cannot conclude my remarks about the Wellington Assembly and the debate which 1 heard there, without saying that the four Maori members discreetly split their votes, two supporting, and two voting against the Ministry.