The Daily News. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1912. "MR. SPEAKER, SIR."

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 93, 5 September 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1912. "MR. SPEAKER, SIR."

Parliamentary procedure is one of those sacred tilings which the average man is only allowed to approach on hands and j knees in an attitude of abasement, and it. ■ is only after he has knocked his head three times on the floor that he is allowed to wink the other eye at the Speaker or cast a languishing glance at the Leader of the Opposition. But in Sydney they have a Speaker who is impervious to these blandishments and who eits upon a throne that is a veritable holy of holies where the Press and the public are concerned. Mr. Speaker Willis is getting a rough run. Full of cotted the representatives of the Sy<lcotted the respresentatives of the Sydney Telegraph because they had the gross impertinence to challenge his ruling upon some unimportant matter politic and say naughty things about his somewhat autocratic ruling. Mr. Willis is, of course, notoriously a "wild man from Borneo" in his conduct of Parliament, and he has a nice quiet habit of ordering the unfortunate Sergcant-at-Arms to throw out anybody in the House who says that black isn't white or that cockroadies cannot walk upon the ceiling with their backs facing the floor. There are people who will say that he is quite correct in these contentions, but they are the ordinary persons who hate to discuss politics from anything but the street-corner point of view. The Willis incident is only interesting in New Zealand on account of its pieturesqueness, but incidentally it has a bearing on the right of public comment. Rightly or wrongly members of Parliament have the privilege of saying what they like when they talk about Bill Smith and Mrs. Whatsername and the Iline charges and the voucher case and the cost of living and any other old thing that is spelt with a capital B. But if the average citizen dares to open his mouth concerning a public scandal he is liable to get seven years or to be tarred and feathered or told that he is "a person," or submitted to some other indignity of a more or less strenuous character. Tin's is just where the Sydney Telegraph has fallen in. In an enthusiastic, excess of publie-spiritedness it had the impertinence to say that Mr Speaker Willis was not exactly 'Tt," when he expelled a member of the Legislature from the House for daring to question his ruling. As a consequence. Mr. Speaker, acting on constitutional authority, issued an order that the representatives of the Telegraph should no longer have access to the Press Gallery. Having sole control of the precincts of the House, the Speaker's fiat had to stand, although both the Minister and the members generally took exception

to his action. One result, of course, was a political farco, for the embargo neither stopped the Telegraph from reporting the proceedings of the House, nor did it add to the dignity of the House as represented by the Speaker. The incident is not of particular interest here except in so far as it illustrates the disabilities under which the newspaper press labors where the law of libel is concerned. A contemporary opinion concerning this law says:—"The libel law of New Zealand was framed by politicians for politicians, and by no ordinary politicians either. It seems to have been devised to keep the public fiom enquiring, with too intimate attention, into the colonial-made brand of statesmanship—a statesmanship which, on the whole, seems to be only a little lower than a road board, and only a little higher than a fruit cart. This enactment constitutes, in its way, the most shocking tyranny in the world. It is ten times as severe as the English libel law, twenty times r.s blighting as the Russian censorship, while, as compared with the libel law in America—well, good Lord! one laughs. It is the stunning glove of Jack Johnson waved round our heads every day and every minute of our lives. It is the badge of servitude and prostitution hung round the neck of the New Zealand Press." There is a whole lot of horse-sense in this picturesque summary, and it is quite time that the agitation for the amendment of the law to allow of a legitimate reproduction of the speeches of members of Parliament and a fair ard unbiased criticism of those speeches should be permitted. It is unthinkable that the solitary word of a solitary man should be allowed to dictate what the community shall be told and what shall be withheld from it.