CARD-PLAYING IN PARLIAMENT

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 239, 7 October 1903, Page 5

CARD-PLAYING IN PARLIAMENT

BEHIND THE SCENES.

SOME NEW REVELATIONS

(By Telegraph. —Special to "Star.")

CHRISTCHURCH, this day.

The outcome of tlie passage-at-arms between Messrs Taylor and Lewis during the debate on Mr Bedford's "Xo-c-onfldenc-e" amendment to the Impres, Supply Bill was a letter to the "Lyttelton Times" from Mr Lewis giving his version of the affair, and incidentally throwing some light on his card-playing proclivities, which if will be remembered, formed the main feature of the incident. Mr Lewis contradicted the insinuation that he ever permitted card-playing to iif erf ere with his Legislative duties, pointed out that he never gambled, but merely played a "mild game" in company with purists like Messrs Bedford, Arnold, Laurenson and Fowlds, and counter-charged Mr Taylor with going to bed before the real business of the House began, and neglecting committee work in the day time.

This drew a lengthy reply last Friday from Mr Taylor, Who defended himself rather heatedly. Tie charactised MT Lewis' action in using the names' of some of his fellow-members as a foil to the charge thai he devotes an undue portion of time whilst the House is silling to card-playing as absolutely indefensible, adding. "When he says that any one of the members he names Avast.es as much, time in the card-room as he does it is absolutely inaccurate, and no one knows if better than himself." Mr Taylor admitted that he enjoyed a game of cards himself, but contended that he was far better occupied in bed and asleep after midnight than in the card-room. To Mr Lewis' accusation that he neglected his committee duties, he replied that he attended all the meelinjis he considered necessary, and that he did a great deal of valuable inquiry work outside the precincts of the committeeroom. One paragraph in Mr Taylor's letter ran: ".Mr Lewis uses a screen for his infatuation for cards, but bis action is on a level with that of the schoolboy who, to save his own skin, peaches on his comrades in some prank, and is proof that, the educational advantages and social opportunities his father's Avealth enabled him to enjoy have not modified his inherited instincts."

To this Mr Lewis retorted in a letter appearing ir. yesterday's (Tuesday's) "Times" that Mr Taylor's reference to "inherited instincts" is proof of the frame of mind in which he wrote. He adds: ''There is no gambling in Parliament. Gambling is playing for money, and no one here plays for money. We play for fun. which is largely increased by the opportunities for good-humoured chaff arising out of our enormous losses or gains. Mr Lewis reiterates the substance of his former charge, which, by the way, included one of loquacity. Upon the question of attendance, he points out that it is not at three o'clock in the i.ffernoon, but twelve hours later, that: tilings want watching. It is not the printed clauses in the bills that do the damage, hut new clauses proposed unexpectedly in the early morning. It is now the recognised custom to introduce debatable matter when members are worn out by long sittings at the end of a long day. a hard week, or an exhausting session. Twelve months later no one can surpass Mr Taylor in denouncing what has occurred, and the doings of a Parliament from which his effective speech has excluded him supply him with material for hours of invective; vet at four o'clock in the morning one ineffective speaker, prepared to slick things up, is worth forty Taylors at home in bed.