HANSARD.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 149, 3 October 1910, Page 4

HANSARD.

One of the most pathetic sights to be seen in the City of the Seat of Government is .the periodical ihacking up of spring carts to the kerb in front of the Government Printing Office, there to receive flhesr pinik loads of Hansards—the official record's of pearls of Parliament. One meets .these Hansards years afterwards on dusty shelves, in lighthouses, under, talble legp, in the abodes of politicians, anidl occasionally stuffed in pigeon-holes in a lawyer's office—all with the wrappers on. Hansard persists, al'ttoougih itlhe heavens fall, and its utility ' lies in the fact .that the statements therefin are on record! for ever and ever and are useful years after issue to politicians Sn ordier to prove .that Mr. A. made quite a different statement some sessions ago. Hansard ougjht to "be useful in all conscience. It employs, in the first instance, a staff of jcntlfßifr r«p orterg \rhc Tor'r

in shrifts of five minutes and obtain £ 300 a year for their services whether these services occupy tdiem one hour or one day, twelve hours a day or no hours a day, during three, four, five or six months a year. They are led by a gentleman who is paid more handsomely, for it is his -duty to see that thiu reporters do not flag in the work. There is a large staff of printers, supervisors, reader's, wrappers, porters and others employed in making ready and despatching to dusty shelves this inimitable production, read, 'when all else fails, by the lonely bullocky and the obscure light-keeper. That great radical, Mr. F. M. B. 'Fisher, has spoken several miles into Hansard during toils short Parliamentary career, and, being averse to the spendthrift policy that is eating the vitals out of this fail country—or words to that effect—he demands that Hansard shall be improved. Why paint the lily? Mr. Fisher's imperishable words are embalmed insidie the pinik cover, but he desires that the print shall be better in order that in the years to be the person who rescues Hansard from the oblivion of a literary dustheap may read him without mistaking a oomima for a motion of censure. But here is the point. Apart from the gentlemen reporters carefully boxed off in the Houses of Parliament to capture every precious syllable rising from the floor of tine House, the daily papers send to the press galleries many skilled men. Thus the essence of what has occurred is dished iup to the people daily at breakfast or dinner. Nothing of any importance ever escapes these daily paper reporters, and icbe statesmen who hurl their bombs look eagerly for the explosion next morning, and are really not concerned with them by the time they reach Hansard, a week after, or maybe ten days. Hansard is the stalest of stale news by the time it reaches the people who do not read it. If it has any virtue it is that it is a faithful record —duly amended! (by each speaker—of anything he has said. The daily paper reporter is quite as faithful a recorder as the Hansard man, but—-the politician does not see the proofs, the recorder works a twelve-lhour shift instead of five minutes, and the paper man may take the liberty of giving 'the essence of a matter of interest without actually transgressing the rales of grammar. Hansard is Hansard because it is English, because it is a magnificent chance of providing occasional work to a large number, of persons engaged during a part of the year and! obtaining a year's salary. The talk in Parliament is so important that it is considered necessary to have an official record* If it could be proved l that the people of New Zealand who pay far Hansard really desired such a record, ilhey should be given it in Mr. Fisher's improved form. If it can be proved that by improving it off the face of the Dominion the people of New Zealand would be bereft of nothing useful, there would l be fewer tons of pink-cover-ed waste paper lying in odd corners of this country.