“The Press” In 1865

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30666, 4 February 1965, Page 12

“The Press” In 1865

FEBBMAR.'I 4. THE SPEAKERSHIP The Canterbury Standard has been selected as the medium for a confidential communication addressed by Mr John OlUvier to the Members of the Provincial Council, informing them of hie intention to solicit their suffrages for the speakership of that body; an office which will become vacant by the resignation of Mr Bowen on his departure for England. The idea of advertising for an office of this . kind is novel, but one with which it is not our part to quarrel. We are bound to hold that every step taken in public or private life should be announced to the world by an advertisement. Still with all our natural predilections in favor

of the practice we cannot help feeling that it is a new, and not very dignified plan to advertise one’s self for an office in the gift of some 36 or 37 members of a legislative body. With what conflicting feelings do we not contemplate the success or failure of Mr OUivier’s ambitious scheme. On the one hand, can we leam without regret that that ceaseless murmuring erf eloquent talk is to cease for ever? That voice, whose tones used to underlie and sustain the broken fragments of sound in a debate in the Council, as the continuous tone of the organ or harmonium fills up every chink and crevice in a chorus—is that to be doomed to the silence of the Speaker’s chair? Forbid it kind fate. It must be a joke—a hoax.