THE "SILENT SPEECH."

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2032, 28 August 1880, Page 3

THE "SILENT SPEECH."

The " Sydney Morning Herald" is very severe on Sir George for his " silent speech " in the Assembly. It says:—"Ostensibly indeed, Sir George elected to be dumb until the Premier should lend him his ears. But a politician so experienced would hardly, it is to be hoped, seriously attempt to justify so extraordinary a perversion of Parliamentary forms by a pretence so frivolouß. Sir George Grey, fond as he has shown himself of aping the Dictator when in power, has ever been a contcmnor of authority when held by others. The reporters of the Press, who may be termed the ears of the publio, were in their places ; the Assembly as a body was bestowing upon him ordinary attention; yet Sir George, the scourge of Governors, and the defier of Secretaries of State, was not content. All was nought unless the Premier would hear him. The precedent thus introduced by the New Zealand ex-Premier bristles with prospective inconveniences. Hon, members may, in further development of Sir George Grey's plan, perfeot a system of obstruction made easy. The introduction of mechanical supports in the primary form of chairs, footstools, and coats, opens the way to constructive ingenuity, and there is no saying what perfection of propping apparatus may be produced when the next stonewalling episode occurs in a colonial Parliament. Fortified with an ingenious supporting framework, they may, without any direct violation of the forms of the House close to their eyes to think; and a slumbering, but upright legislator may suspend all proceediogs by the mere spell oil his erect attitude."