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New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 27, 2 July 1903, Page 29

Mr Henry W. Lucy, not always a kindly critic where Insh members are concerned, reierring to Mr. Healy's speech on the Land Bill, writes in the ' Observer ' :—: — Tluough neaily a quarter of a century he has whetted the i.i/oi of his wit on the strop of the House of Commons, and being ol tempered stoel, he has got it now in line, workmanlike condition. It has come to pass that thii gamin of the early eighties, who, as he made cartwheels down the floor of tho House, wished it were a roadway productive of splashes, has reached the position of commanding influence in the mother of Parliaments Theie are only two other members — and they speak with tho authority of Cabinet Ministers — who can. (ill the House as does Tim Healy. His last appearance on t ho scene testified in striking manner to this magic power When at four o'clock on Thursday afternoon he interposed, the House was empty, the debate approaching a comatose state. An hour and a half of the sittin.ir, which at its close did not lea\ c more than sixty minutes at the disposal ol the Minister in charge of the Hill, had been appropriated for delivery of two speeches the House would willingly have let die. Five minutes after Mr Hoaly was on his logw the returning tide set m It. steadily flowed till presently Mr. Healy's barbed shafts were flashing around the heads of a delighted audience that filled e\ery bench and stood in a throng at tho Bar. r I ho sudden emptying of the House when a bore follows a brilliant speaker is easy to understand. What is mysterious is tho swift filling of the Chamber when the converse is the case.'