Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1910. BROW-BEATING MEMBERS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10150, 21 November 1910, Page 4

Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1910. BROW-BEATING MEMBERS.

The attitude assumed in the House of Representatives on Friday evening by the Minister for Works and tho Prime Minister, in regard to the independence of the member for Pahiatua and other followers of the Ward Party, was anything but dignified. The remarks of the Hon R. McKen/Je were positively rude, if > they were not vulgar. Ministers J have been so much in the habit of riding rough-shod over private members, that the latter have been reduced to the position of mere automata. They are not supposed to possess a- mind of their own or the semblance of a vertebrae. if they vote against the party whom they ' have been nominally returned to support, they are charged with being renegades and deserters, and aro subjected to the grossest indignities. This is what Party politics lias brought things to in New Zealand. The whole paraphernalia of Government is controlled by half-a-dozen men, some of whom are not fit to lace the boots of a School Committeeman of average/ intelligence. The whole business is a travesty on constitutional government. It is, degrading to the manhood of those possessed of an honest desire to be of service to their country. It only requires a few more exhibitions such as that made in tho House on Friday to arouse the indignation and excite the disgust of the people, so that Party government, as we know it in New Zealand, will be swept out of existence.