Mr. Speaker . . . Session Queries and Asides

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 703, 1 July 1929, Page 1

Mr. Speaker . . . Session Queries and Asides

(TUB SUB'S Parliamentary Brportr WELLINGTON. Saturday.

Parliament during the last two days has been mainly one dashed thing after another. Questions galore have greeted the ears of those patient people who listened to the stream of talk in spate, and during the Imprest Supply debate last evening unemployment was the main theme of polite or impolite conversation. Mr. Speaker had to call on members at times to observe the rules of the House, and to address him instead of "you members.’’ He showed a nice sense of discrimination when he asked Mr. F. Langstone (Waimarino) to call the members “honourable” instead of merely members.

The principal business done on Friday was the passing of the Imprest Supply Bill and the Local Authorities Empowering (Relief of Unemployment) Extension Bill. The latter provides that the Act, which expired on June 30, should be extended for another year.

A few unconscious humorists were in evidence during the debate on the Imprest Supply. Mr. R. A. Wright i Wellington Suburbs) told the House that it was easy to call a man a sapient member. But Is it truthful’.’

Another member, speaking with the force of conviction and the consciousness of truth, said Impressively, “I have the facts in my pockets.” So were his hands.

Mr. Wright doubtless could remember what Gladstone said on various dates, for his memory of things Parliamentary goes back a long way. On Friday evening he said, "Mr. Speaker, you wouldn't remember —but 1 do—that in 1879, when Sir George Grey was Prime Minister, this country was nearly bankrupt.” The House smiled at this glimpse of the pre-shingle days.

It is wonderful how many people come to Parliament House to sit in the galleries and listen to the words of wisdom that flow from the mouths of the men on the floor. Perhaps the visitors have a feeling that they are as Gods on Olympus—as politicians lead them to believe at election time, when votes are valuable—looking at the puny efforts of men to strike the classic oratorical note. However, they come along, and they sit through the debates, some of them rising with the House in the hours when milkmen are meditating on life and perhaps a little more water with it.

During the imprest Supply debate on Friday, one lone woman sat in the rear gallery, and listened earnestly for a while. Then her head graduallydropped sideways, and she slumbered, now and then starting into consciousness, only to be dragged back by Morpheus. She stayed on till 1.30 a.m., but 10 minutes later she had folded her knitting more or less like and Arab and had silently stolen away.

The knitting gang was in evidence early, and listened and tatted steadily while Labour rocked the Government' with criticism and heckling. Perhaps there was a thought in the minds of some of the knitters that some of the dear men below might look well with a big ball of wool and the pattern of a red woollen whatnot. Who knows?

It was stated today by the Ministev of Labour, the Hon. W. A. Veitch, that arrangements had been made for the Hon. Mr. Justice Frazer to travel in Australia with a view to studying industrial systems and workers’ compensation in that country. His Honour will leave for Sydney by the Marama next week, and his place on the Arbitration Court bench will be taken by the Hon. Mr. Justice Blair. Oh Hear Dem Bells! Bells are a great factor in the lives of Parliamentarians. They clang in the House at all sorts of times, summoning the members together, calling for a division, signifying the end of supper, and things like. Evidently they are something new to one North Island member. He was returning from supper during the Imprest Supply debate, and the clangour started, giving the signal that now was the time for talking again and not eating, “what are the bells ringing for?” he asked a man in the corridor. The man restrained a desire to tell him that the building was on fife.