Parliamentary Language.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 213, 13 September 1904, Page 4

Parliamentary Language.

A coincidence in Parliamentary oratory is worth notice. Mr Fraaer, of Napier, the other night designated a certain southern member an "amphibious humbug," 'because he had "one foot on sea and one an shore" in tihe matter of the leasehold and freehold question. The definition, without the qualifying adjective, had been previously applied to another member by another orar tor without the intervention of either the House or Mr Speaker. Singularly enough, by the last mail from England, comes a report in the Times of July 22nd of the peccant term being employed by Mr Winston Churchill, who ejaculated "humbug" during the speech of Mr Lyttelton, the Secretary lor tho Colonies. Thereupon Ministerialists "protested loudly against the interruption, and there was considerable uproar, to tho midst of which Mr Ctoamfeprlaln rose to inquire whether 'humbug-'f was a Parliamentary expression." The Chairman (the House was in Committee of Supply) while declining to rule that it was unparliamentary, expressed a hope that "the junior member for Oldham would allow | somebody else to speak besides himself," a remark which produced loud laughter and subsequently decorum. Another word of close kin to '-'humbug'-' is recalled from tihe old days of our Parliament. It is the word "bunkum," * o» ''Buncombe," which in replying to the late Mr Rolleston a newly-fledged member flippantly applied to certain remarks of that respected representative. Sir Harry (them Major) 'Atkinson rose, and pointedly objected to the term, and the offending member rejoined by explaining that Buncombe was the name of a Congressional constituency in North Carolina, end that its representative, who had no oratorical powers in matter or manner, :on ome occasion nearly emptied the House. Nothing discouraged, the member told toe remaining sitters that they might So too, he Should speak for some time, but "he was only talking to BuncomMp." So the word,- which is historic, has 'been crystallised, and the pages of Hansard and the hard-worked press reporters know, to their cost, ho* largely the practice illustrated tiiereby still prevails in oui Legislatures. —N.Z. Times.