Drinking in Farliamemt

Feilding Star, Volume VI, Issue 87, 6 January 1885, Page 3

Drinking in Farliamemt

In an article on "Drink in Parliament" the Temperance Herald refers to the statements on the subject that have appeared in the Wellington papers and says : — " Whiie we may exonerate all but a few members from the charge of personal excess, we cannot relieve them of the responsibility of having elected to office a man of known drunken habitsNothing can excuse members who knowingly degraded the House and by so degrading the House of Kepressntatives, degraded the country they represent, the House has control of its own members, and if any of these habitually act so as to bring our parliamentary institutions into contempt, and make the Parliament the witness of ' scandalous scenes,' they should rise to the situation, and in the same of common decency, ruthlessly expel such members from their number. The country would sustain them in so vindicating their own character and the country's honor. For how much of the iiiieged or actual drunkenness is Bellamy's responsible P Here as everywhere, the liquor traffic vindicates its true character. Wherever the traffic is, the drunkenness, its legitimate and necessary fruit, inevitably follows. The first step to be taken by our representatives in order to cleanse the House and redeem their character, is to sweep all 'intoxicants out of Bellamy's. If they do this they will relieve themselves of complicity with the drunkenness of any of t heir members md may probably prevent any further ■ecurrenoe of that drunkenness. Till hey do that, their responsibility remains.