Wairarapa Daily Times. [Established 1874.] TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1895. HANSARD.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XVI, Issue 5162, 22 October 1895, Page 2

Wairarapa Daily Times. [Established 1874.] TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1895. HANSARD.

_« A now amongst the Hansard staff calls public attention to one of the milder kind of leeches which batten on the taxpayer.. Hansard costs the public three or foiivthousaiul pounds a year and in return wo get, a month after date, untrustworthy reports of what members are supposed to say in the House. To members is conceded the right of revision and this privilege in some oases is carried to such an extent that Hansard absolutely perverts what they actually do say. Hansard reporters are' really the literary lacqueys of the House, they possess no independence and probably enjoy the respect of neither ! members nor the public, Uiidorotlier circumstances they might be distinguished journalists, but fato has put them in a groove where they cannot obtain honour. The members of the ; staff have recently rounded on their chief, whose age in the service and [ w hosegontlenianly demeanourshould have saved him from such contumely. Ministers, too, seem to favour the idea of directly controlling the staff, and if they succeed in doing this another element of distortion will work mischief in tho reports. The Hansard business as it is now conducted is a mere sham,

■lf the Govornmont gave a journal liko the New Zealand Times, from two to three thousand pounds a year to produce from day to day, an up-to-date, independent Huiisard report in its columns, the Colony would get some return for its money. In the first place, the record would be obtained within as many hours as it now takes days. In the second, it would not, as now, bo garbled, In the third, some little forshorlening of unimportant speeches, would mako the record readable, instead of it being as it is now, utterly unreadable, The public bavo to pay the, piper, and now they buy a pig in a poke, for they get what members meant to have said, instead of, their actual uttterances. In somo.sases there is an excuse fo'r this, indeed during the present session, it is said that one member; who had lost his head, actually uttered an indecent threat; but the public, if they have |to pay for a Hansard report, want [ nothing material suppressed, omitted :,ormisrepresented.> HanM.H.R.'so far forgets himself, as (ouseimproper language, the Colony -.who pays' for his services, is entitled to know what it gets from- him iu return,