The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET. AUCKLAND SATURDAY, MARCH 23, 1929 NOISE IN POLITICS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 620, 23 March 1929, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET. AUCKLAND SATURDAY, MARCH 23, 1929 NOISE IN POLITICS

SEVENTY-FIVE years ago the first New Zealand Parliament presented the Sydney Press with a rare opening for censorious criticism. Sydney was then inclined to regard New Zealand as a curious growth existing primarily to amuse the good people of New South Wales. The leader-writers did not hesitate to exploit the opening, and even England, though absored in the Crimean War, spared a pained glance or two for the turbulent colonial legislators.

The first Parliament had assembled at Auckland with the best intentions in the world. Most of its members were educated men schooled in the proprieties of debate. Yet, within a fortnight a struggle between Parliament and the Acting-Governor had precipitated disgraceful scenes. A dissenting minority that tried to leave the House was prevented, after a sharp scuffle, by the locking of the doors. A member who entered the Chamber to announce that the Governor had prorogued his troublesome Parliament was set upon and assaulted, and the sitting closed in uproar after blows had been exchanged both on the floor of the House and in the strangers’ gallery. Of this undignified farce the Sydney “Morning Herald” remarked: “We defy the annals of any representative assembly to present us with a parallel to the happenings at Auckland.” It went on to compare the scenes with those witnessed at the historic dissolution of the Long Parliament, and with the violent party conflict that characterised the sessions of the French National Convention. All this is interesting, because there is a pronounced contrast to-day between the standard of deportment in the New Zealand and New South Wales assemblies. The balance of the disparity is all in New Zealand’s favour, for while the episodes of 1854 were never repeated in the New Zealand Chamber, and a high standard was set that has in the main been rigidly observed, the New South Wales Parliament has established a reputation in recent years for disreputable outbreaks, and the standard of its conduct appears to he still deteriorating. Noise in politics is no phenomenon. In Continental countries it is an accepted concomitant of rule by democracy. The less volatile legislators of British assemblies usually have a stronger tradition of reserve, hut happenings in the House of Commons and in Australia show that this is not a stable warranty of good conduct. The Lang minority in the New South Wales Assembly has recently surpassed itself, and its practice of hurling abusive epithets not only at its opponents, but also at the Speaker, threatens to undermine the whole structure of Parliamentary dignity. Disorder was occasioned a fortnight ago when two Labour members refused to act as tellers for a division —a form of protest that attacks the root of Parliamentary procedure. Parliaments differ the world over. A contemporary essayist visiting America with his wife was welcomed by a State legislature with ceremonious formality. He sat at the Speaker’s right hand, and his wife at the left, and both were called upon to address the Assembly. Even the strangers in the gallery were included in the general introduction. Strangers must be tolerated, hut in few places are they so genially encouraged. The presence of auditors in the galleries threatens, indeed, to become one of the problems of modern legislation. Interruptions from the strangers’ benches in the House of Commons seem to he growing more frequent—a sure reflection of intensity of political feeling in England—and only the other day a man and a woman had to be forcibly ejected during a sitting of the New South Wales Assembly. No harm is done to anyone when some amiable crank shouts “rogues” or “liars” at the assembled politicians, but the trouble is that the activities of the strangers may not stop at that. From casting abuse they may advance to throwing brickbats, a progression that would be singularly embarrassing, as the strangers’ gallery is usually a handsome vantage-point from which to hurl such missiles.

New Zealand has not yet bred a type of political campfollower so violent or so eccentric as to create a disturbance in the galleries. Anything of that character would he viewed with horror. Conduct in the Dominion Parliament is buttressed by firm traditions and the iron rule of Mr. Speaker, and there is nothing hut the signs of the times overseas to suggest that the strong though intangible barrier, conducive as it is to order both in the House and in the galleries, will crumble. It will hold as long, no doubt, as the patience of the people holds.