THE MINISTER FOR DELICACY.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1248, 5 October 1911, Page 4

THE MINISTER FOR DELICACY.

Versatility is still the commanding feature of our Ministry. They are always giving us something new: the Pp.iiib Minister instructs the undergraduate in the art of lucid expression, the Attorney-General gives John Bull an elementary lecture on freedom, Sir J.ajies Cakeoupreaches the gospel of energy and effort to the Yorkshire Society. But the Hon R. H'Kkxzie as a Professor of Delicacy rather bewilders us. The reluctance of the Government, he told the House yesterday, to supply, as in past years, particulars of the cost of entertaining visitors, was not due at all to a- love of secrecy: "There was no secrecy at all, but only a proper delicacy." "It appeared to him," he went on, seeing an opportunity to give the uncivilised Opposition a practical example of delicacy in diction, |; it appeared to him that the main object of the Opposition during this session was to fill the pages of Hansard with flapdoodle." A little later, to quote from our Parliamentary report today: .Mr. B. A. Wright said lie had not realised the delicacy of the Minister for Public Works prior to his recent explanation. Mr. Jl'Kcnwc: "You are too thickheaded to roaliso jt!" "A proper delicacy," indeed. Almost affectation, one might say. It is too bad that the rough, blunt men on Me. Massey's side of the House should have so little regard for the frnli.ngs of those tender buds, the Ministry, to whom _ Mb. M'Kekzik imparts his instruction in the art of being lady-like. Too. bad that our thick-headedness has blinded us to tho aesthetic spirit of the Minister for Delicacy.