SLIPS OF THE TONGUE.

Bush Advocate, Volume XXI, Issue 296, 18 June 1909, Page 7

SLIPS OF THE TONGUE.

AMUSING MISTAKES MADE BY PUBLIC SPEAKERS. Every session of Parliament produces a fail- crop of "bulls," and, it may be noted, the majority come from ' the English members. One of the best however was perpetrated last year by Mr Swift MacNeill, the well-known Nationalist member. He had been unable to get a particular question put because the Speaker ruled it out of order; but in a speech lie delivered during the same evening lie turned upon Mr Balfour and declared that "the right honorable gentleman had been afraid to answer the question he had not asked." Mr O'Connor Power is now almost forgotten, though in his day ho was one. of the most advehtised members of Parliament. He it was who said, during a Budget debate, that "now that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has let the cat out of the bag, it is time to take the bull by the horns." Both Mr Austen Chamberlain and the late Mr Gladstone havo accused political opponents of "smiling loudly," but this is a common expression in Parliament nowadays, and has been so often used that it has passed into the currency of political speech. The statement by an indignant Irish member, that the Government is taking a leap in the dark, compared with which all other leaps are a. mere fleabite," is hard to beat as a specimen of the mixed metaphor that is also a "bull." Sir Stafford JSTorthcote's statement that "it is because the Government" have been straining at gnats that they are now obliged to swallow camels," sounded well, but meant nothing more than confusion of thought on the part of the speaker.