POOR VAUDEVILLE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3769, 10 August 1907, Page 2

POOR VAUDEVILLE.

Members’ night in the House of Representatives does not inspire the visitor with a feeling of pride in certain of the people’s representatives. Our representative, by the courtesy of the member for

the district, was an interested spectator in the Speaker's Gallery of the House last Wednesday night, when Sir Wm, Steward’s Bill to make Legislative Councillors elective, was being discussed in committee. The whole proceedings were not equal in point of merit to the efforts of a second-rate juvenile debating society. The Bill has not the ghost of a chance of going through, and yet, for lack of a strong personality in the Chamber, the people’s money was being squandered to the tune of about per minute in discussing it. Mr Wilford, the member for the Hutt, tried in a brassy fashion, when moving an amendment, to be funny for the amusement of the galleries, but his exhibition was a poor sample of vaudeville. The member for Ashburton, whose “ sweet face haunts me still,” pulled himself on his legs, laughed, and garbled some twaddle, and was very pleased with his own balderdash. The whole proceedings were a shameful waste of money and time, and a lowering of the dignity of the Chamber. And yet we lead the world !