FUN IN PARLIAMENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1015, 4 July 1930, Page 18

FUN IN PARLIAMENT

MR. McDOUGALL IN FORM AGAIN AN AMUSING SPEECH THE SUN’S Parliamentary Reporter PARLIAMENT BLDGS., Thursday. Very confidentially Mr. D. McDougall (United —Mataura), who made history last session with his first speech, addressed Mr. Speaker in the House this evening and unloosed some of his pawky humour upon the expectant House and galleries. When he was serious he was dull, but when he was natural he was wonderful. “I always thought the member for Dunedin West (Mr. W. Downie Stewart)," he said, “was a good solid Scotsman, but I was surprised when he went down to Dunedin at the General .Election and blew a lot of blarney about having turned the corner and basking in the sunshine of prosperity." “No one knew, not even the Opposition, and they know a lot, that there was going to be an earthquake on the West Coast that would cost the country thousands." “I like the member for Thames (Mr. A. M. Samuel). He’s a nice fellow. I once knew a gentleman like him. 1 saw him at a show in Southland and ho was selling potato peelers, Brummagem jewellery, powder and scent and soap, and other articles too numerous to mention. But the canny Scots wasna’ biting too well, and business was bad, so he took out a purse and waved it in the air and put a sovereign in it and then nine more. He asked who would buy it for a pound. 1 rushed it. and when 1 got round the corner, what do you think 1 found? A fourpenny purse and a dead spider.” The House shrieked with laughter. “The Parnell seat was not lost by a fair go?, but what I call a rabbit punch. This first-past-the-post is the sheet anchor of the Reform Party, and if it were abolished Reform would never be heard of again.” “Here’s a Government that turned a deficit of £421,000 into a surplus of £150,000." A Reformer: What did it cost to do it? Mr. McDougall (raspingly): Nothing else but brains. Discussing the actions of the Government, Mr. McDougall asked, “Aren't you proud of us?" Reformers: No. Mr. McDougall: Then that shows how little you have above the eyebrows.

When Mr. McDougall was referring frequently to his notes. Air. J. A. Nash (Reform —Palmerston North) rose to a point of order, claiming Mr. McDougall was reading his speech. Air. AteDougall threw his notes under his de.-»k and then took them up again. “Air. {Speaker.” ,he said, confidingly. “1 came down here tonight, and I didn’t know 1 was -roing to speak, but I was called upon. 1 picked these notes up hurriedly—and 1 haven’t got a good memory, Mr. Speaker." He ended his speech with a little story that he directed at Reform when he was discussing military training and Reform’s opposition to the abolition of compulsion. “There was an old Scottish farmer " he said, “bent with toil, who met the squire of the village. The squire was a big straight fellow, and he said. ‘Why, Jock, don’t ye straighten yourself up and be like me?’ “ ’Weel,’ said the old farmer, ‘Dae ye see that field of corn? Ye’ll notice that the ears with anything in them are bending over, and them that has nothing in them are standing straight up?’”