TALKING RECORDS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1264, 27 June 1914, Page 4

TALKING RECORDS.

LOQUACIOUS POLITICIANS

In the Australian federal Parliament the longest speech has been made by Mr W, Webster, a New South Wales member ot the House of Representatives. On a no-confidence motion, moved by Mr A. Fisher, Leader of the Opposition, in July, 1909, against the Deacon-Cook Government, Mr Webster started at 11.2 a.m., and at 4.5 p.m. was given leave to continue bis address on the next day of sitting—the following Tuesday. He resumed at 3.5 p.m., and sat down at 10.10 p.m. Excluding meal adjournments, he had spoken for nine hours and forty minutes, contributing, as one I critic remarked at the time, 537 yards of talk to Hansard. Thereafter the member for' Gwydir became known as “Webster Unabridged.” By many, the record put up by the late LieutenantColonel John Cosh Nield, when a member ot the Parliament of New South Wales, was regarded as the greater of the two. He spoke for seven hours without a break, and earned for himselt the soubriquet “Jawbone.” He never came anywhere near beating his own record when a member of the Federal Senate, but on occasions he spoke for hours at a stretch. Other members of the Federal Parliament who have delivered long speeches are: Mr King O’Malley, 5 hours 13 minutes, on September 30th, 1909 ; Mr W, G. Spence, 4 hours 30 minutes, on September 30th, 1904; and Mr A, Deakin, 4 hours 23 minutes, on October i2tb, 1904. Mr T. Brown and Mr R, A. Crouch each made a four-hours’ speech. Such long discourses are now impossible in the Federal Parliament, the time at each speaker’s disposal being fixed by the Standing Orders.