The Feilding Star. SATURDAY, JUNE 19, 1886. Privilege and the Press

Feilding Star, Volume VIII, Issue 3, 19 June 1886, Page 2

The Feilding Star. SATURDAY, JUNE 19, 1886. Privilege and the Press

We make the following; extract from the iPost :— These breach of privilege discussions always have one very amusing feature: They are invariably taken advantage of by some of the politically smallest, and intellectually most j insignificant, members of the House to abuse . the Tress ; generally, and to affect a cpntenlpt, r they certainly do not feel, for all newspaper criticism. Tfeey : usually-rcul-minate in a witheringly sarcastic reference to penny-a>liners, eyideiitly conceiving that to be a very opprebri^ bus term. To moa*' ;of those behind: the ~ scenes the lofty sentiment, the boasted independnece, the assumed indignation,ofthesehoaorablegentlemefe are intensely amusing... Old Parliamentary pressmen know how many of these supremely virtuous and highminded members act as "our own correspondents" for their own little local papers, being remunerated not indeed by the mythical penny a line, but by the opportunity of blowing their own trumpets, and exhibiting themselves in not always natural or truthful colors to the admiring gaze of their constituents. Old pressmen, too, could tell strange tales of the anxiety displayed, the court ..paid to them at times by hon. members, either to obtain indirect puffs to themselves or to discredit opponents. It is probably no breach of privilege to say that there is a vaet amount of humbug and "make believe" even in Parliament.