J. E. FITZGERALD’S SON COMPILED FIRST HANSARD

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27470, 2 October 1954, Page 9

J. E. FITZGERALD’S SON COMPILED FIRST HANSARD

New Zealand’s Parliamentary centenary this year has sent many writers to the study of old political records, including the first volumes of the Parliamentary Debates, or Hansard, as they are commonly known. For these early chapters of New Zealand history, they are indebted to a young man who died of tuberculosis in 1886 at the age of 25. They are almost his life work.

This compiler of the first volumes was Mr Maurice Fitz Gerald, a son of James Edward Fitz Gerald, firsr Superintendent of Canterbury and first Prime Minister of New Zealand. Mr Maurice Fitz Gerald did not live quite long enough to see the last of his work printed. The final volume was laid on the table of the House of Representatives by Sir Robert Stout on July 19, 1886, just nine days after the death of Mr Fitz Gerald at Clyde Cliff. Sir George Grey joined with Sir Robert Stout in references to Mr Fitz Gerald’s intellect and character. A copy of this volume, which had been in the library of “The Press” but has now been placed in the General

Assembly Library at Wellington, contains a brief note from Mr J. E. FitzGerald to his son-in-law, Mr W. H. Levin, of Wellington, who had also played a distinguished part in politics. The note reads as follows: “This is Maurice’s last work, and was laid on the Tr.ble of the House, July 19th. after he died.—J.E.F.-G.”

Reporting of Parliament Systematic reporting of* New Zealand Parliamentary debates did not begin until 1867, when Mr C. N. Barron was appointed chief of a small reporting staff. Until then the only records of proceedings were in the official Journals of the Houses, which gave little beyond brief minutes of proceedings. When it was decided to compile an official record of the debates in the first 13 years, Mr FitzGerald undertook a heavy task. In a preface to his first volume he describe how “everyone still living and in ths colony, who had been a member of either House, and Whose address could be ascertained, was requested, by a circular letter, to sup-

ply the editor with any corrected reports of his speeches which he might possess. Files of all the newspapers published in the colony during the years in question were procured and their reports carefully collated.” In a footnote to the preface, Mr Fitz Gerald quoted a letter of October 9, 1860, as evidence of the nature of the materials with which he had to work: “You will find a pretty good report of the debate in the ‘New Zealander.’ But these reports give little notion of the reality. Some members . . . whose speeches are dreary beyond belief, or almost unintelligible as delivered in the House, contrive to figure well, with rounded periods and flowing oratory in the columns of the newspaper; w ile others—such as Fitzherbert, whose powers of illustration and sarcasm you well know, Sewell, who speaks much and often, or Fox, who speaks at railway space—are shorn of their fair proportions and their speeches reduced to mere notes. I do not blame the reporters for this—they probablv do the best that can be done under the circumstances . . . but it gives to a debate in print a very different effect from the debate in reality; and makes some members who usually talk to empty benches apparently as prominent as those who electrify the gallery, or are the life of the House.” Debate on Native Affairs

The debate to which the correspondent referred was apparently one on native affairs. It is interesting to observe that Mr Fitz Gerald was able to provide a lengthy report, in which Fox. Fitzherbert, and Sewell all figure prominently, as does Dillon Bell, who was at one time black-listed by the newspapers.

In fact, but for Mr Fitz Gerald’s foreword, it would not be easy to distinguish between his compilation and the actual reporting by the Hansard staff in later years.

A postscript to his work is to be found in the last volume of his work. It says: “Owing to the death last year of the compiler and editor of these volumes, the task of seeing this last volume through the press has been committed to others; but the whole of the copy was compiled by him and in the printer’s hands some time previously. The meagreness of newspaper reports in 1866 and the repeated complaints of honourable members in that and previous sessions resulted in the establishment the following years of the reports by an official staff. The present volume completes the history, as far as it has been preserved, of the proceedings of the General Assembly from its inauguration under the Constitution Act in 1854 to the institution of the official Hansard in 1867.”