PARLIAMENTARY GREATNESS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 290, 14 September 1915, Page 3

PARLIAMENTARY GREATNESS.

Says an English correspondent:— To sit in the House of Commons for a. whole day or evening is to bored stiff. One soon learns to understand the meaning of the term "Parliamentary greatness" as applied to certain politicians. The greatest Parliamentarian is the one who can utter the deadliest platitudes in the longest possible time. The next best is the man who can repeat them for the rest of his life. The other day Lord Curzon ’s speech was placarded all over Lonodon as the most brilliant thing since Disraeli died. The alleged brilliance of the speech lay ira the fact that hs Lordship said precisely what 8,000 other people have been yelling since the outbreak of war. Here are some of the brilliancies:'— In the last five years I have attended the House about fifty times, and save for a few quips from the Irish, side the general impression received was one of deadly dullness. Very often, amidst an imposing silence, a. great man will lift himself across the benches, and, with a terrible forefinger raised to the ancient roof, will tell us that we are war with Germany. The statement is always received wlrn. bated breath, and if the great one happens to be a lord his flash of inspiration is attributed to his Eton upbringing, or the result of his grandmother's marriage into the peerage. The great Dizzy, of whom every Englishman speaks in a whisper, was a lean pipe of a man, attached to an eternal gasometer of words. If this statement is ever contradicted I will send along the noble Hebrew's printed speeches and his novels.