STRIKE IN PARLIAMENT.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1243, 27 September 1911, Page 4

STRIKE IN PARLIAMENT.

EFFECTIVE PROTEST BY THE I'KESS GALLERY. Attention was drawn by several members in Parliament yesterday to tho overcrowding of tho chamber, and also to the fact that it was difficult to follow debates owing to tho conversation of the ladies who sit tehind tho members' benches. Altogether there has) been a waut of order in the House this session. Strangers in the public gallery have gone tho length of applauding and interjecting. There has been a constant chatter from tho ladies, who havo been permitted to occupy chairs on tho floor of tlio House, and members themselves havo contributed to tho din by carrying on their private conversations in unnecessarily audible tones. Tho general din reached its culminating point last evening. Tho Minister for Railways' was replying to questions regarding his Estimates, and tho press gallery were straining their ears in a hopeless endeavour to catch oven tho gist of his remarks. Finally tho pressmen laid down their pens in disgust and left tho gallery in a. body. A Drotest was sent. to the Chairman of Committees, and the press gallery messenger was deputed to watch' developments. For a time he was in solo possession of tho gallery. Iho pressmen weulvcd unanimously not to return to tho gallery till somo public announcement in regard to tho keeping of better order had boeiumado. Eventually tho Prime Minister interested himself in the situation, and the scribes returned to the gallerv, and wcro able to resume their work in . a quiet and chastened chamber.