WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1887.

Auckland Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 270, 16 November 1887, Page 4

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1887.

There is a story to the eifbet that Napoleon lost the battle of Leipzic and the whole current of European history was changed through a dish of fat pork. The Man of Fate having indulged injudiciously in the pleasures of the table, was bilious and dyspeptic, and lacked his usual fire aud fertility of resource during the famous Battle of Nations. ' Hence the disastrous defeat which broke his power in Europe, and delivered the Continent from the yoke of his quering armies. Tho story may be apocryphal, but it has a good moral. Great events spring from small causes. The storm in the Houso of Representatives yesterday, resulting in the Speaker ordering Sir Julius Vogel to withdraw, is a case in point. Considerations of creed deliver Sir Julius Vogel from the suspicion of cold pork, but we are at a loss to account for the singular asperity of temper manifested by the Speaker on tho occasion, except on the theory that in certain conditions of the liver men are apt to mistake biliousness for piety. We accord Sir Maurice O'Rorke the highest credit for maintaining the dignity of the House and decorum of debate, but just as modesty may run into prudery, the rules demanding the exercise of reasonable courtesy between hon. members may be rendered mawkish if every retaliatory or "chaffing" remark made by one member of the House respecting another is treated as a breach of the p oprieties of debate. In the words employed by Sir Julius Vogel towards the member for Marsden up to the time when he was interrupted by the Speaker, we can perceive nothing that transgresses the bounds of fair discussion. The me mber for Christchurch had been made the subject of a question which was plainly intended to be personally offensive to him, and to expose him at a disadvantge bofore his fellow members and the country.,

There is nothing upon which a man is so keenly sensitive as any reference to a personal infirmity, and we think that the amount of assistance which the member for Christchurch East is entitled to receive from the officers of the House might very weli have been left to the discretion of the Executive. If they are not fit to act properly in a trivial matter of this sort, they are not lit to administer the affairs of the colony. Other members, while incapacitated from moving, have been accommodated with rooms in the parliamentary buildings, and have received special assistance from the messengers and other officers, and everyone has sympathised with members who endeavoured to fulfil their duties to their constituents under such difficulties. We are sure that no important section in the country desired that Sir Julius Vogel should be personally humiliated in the manner that was attempted in this question, and that even the Radical Reform Association, with all its retrenching ardour, will concur that the Executive might have been safely left to decide what assistance should .be accorded to Sir Julius Vogel in the painful circumstances of his case to enable him to discharge to his legislative duties.

Even if we admit that the question put by the member for Marsden was legitimate, surely the member he had assailed was clearly within his rights in questioning the good taste of the whole proceeding. Our morning contemporary, in beating about for arguments to sustain the Speaker in his ruling, professes to discover something particularly objectionable in the phrase " this member for Marsden." Now, ifc so happens that the words " the member," and not "this member," is the form in which the sentence is wired to us by our special reporter. But it is comparatively unimportant, and the stress which is laid upon the word " this" by the " Herald " shows how little there was in the remarks of Sir Julius Vogel to bring down upon him the censure and interference of the Speaker. The more sultry remarks which followed were the natural sequel to an ill-timed interference. But we maintain that if the statements made by Sir Julius Vogel as to the undue use of House messengers to attend upon intemperate members are true, then he was as fully justified in drawing attention to the abuse as the hon. member for Marsden was in asking for information respecting the special employment of a messenger by Sir Julius Vogel. Moreover, no rules of the House should be allowed to stand in the way of the fearless exposure of such conduct. The Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales was overruled very recently in an attempt to to gag the" mouths of hon. members or circumscribe their freedom of speech, and we believe that if this matter is pressed, and referred to a committee to examine precedents the result cannot be otherwise than to sustain Sir Julius Vogel in the attitude he has assumed, and to prove that Sir Maurice O'Rorke has not in this instance displayed his customary good judgment and discretion.