UNEDIFYING WRANGLING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9664, 1 December 1909, Page 4

UNEDIFYING WRANGLING.

The present session will be fairly , I short, and there is some uncertainty fas to whether Parliament will meet ' again in February next as desired by the Premier. Numerous important proposals affecting revenue, land, defence and other questions, are to be brought; before the House, but nevertheless the time of the session is frittered away in a most wonderful manner, and every now and then unseemly wranglings of an almost childish character axe part of the Parliamentary proceedings. A case in point occurred on Monday last. It is reported as follows:—"Sir Joseph Ward stated in the House of Representatives that a member of the House had 'wired' to a county council asking it to telegraph to him to get him to oppose a certain thing- Members: Oh! Ob! Who? Name? Sir Joseph Ward: A member of the Opposition did i,t. Ask Mr Hine, the member for Stratford, whether he did not do it. He cannot deny it. I have all the facts in my possession. Mr Hine: Where did you get your information? Sir Joseph Ward: Will you say whether it is true or not? Mr Hine: You said that I sent a telegram to local bodies. I am anxious to know where you got the information. Sir Joseph Ward: You say whether it is true or not. Mr Hine: I say that it is untrue —" and so the w rang la proceeds. The uninitiated in polities certainly do not understand what heinous crime Mr Hine would have committed, even if he had sent the telegram. It is difficult to realise why Mr Hine should not send sheaves of telegrams, if he so wishes, to any local body that he may care to address himself to. Why should the Premier trouble about such trumpery matters? Bickerings of the kind alluded to seam to be more in keeping with parish pump politics than befitting to the transaction of the national affairs of a great Duminion, i