POLITICAL NEWS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3148, 30 July 1881, Page 3

POLITICAL NEWS.

[BY TEIjEGRAPH,]

(FKOM OTTK OWN CORRESPONDENT.) Welhng-ton, July 30. A very unplensant affair took pkce in tho House lasL night, when Mr Speight denied having used excessively offensive words "with respect to Mr Brown, tho member for Timpeka. The matter can best be explained by sending you the following leading article from tin's morning's Times : —Mr Speight yesterday, to the astonishment of everyone in the House and gallery, rose in his place and took exception to this in plain terms, said it was untrue, and that he had said nothing which by any possible construction could, be fairly made to convey such a meaning, and cited from what apparently was a Hansard proof in support of his denial. Few persons pay much attention to what this membar for Auckland City East may say on any topic, and after his bold denial of tho purport of what he said, openly in the House on a previous occasion, less regard might have been paid to what he chose to say, or how ho attempted to explain what he intended, to say in the instance under notice. The matter, however, concerns not only our immediate readers, but the public throughout the colony. It may possibly surprise Mr Speight to know that what appeared in our columns in referenco to his very ill-advised remarks concerning the member for Tuapeka, his senior in parliamentary experience by many years, was substantially the same report as that telegraphed to the papers of the colony by all the Press correspondents, and. this without any comparison of notes. Every Press representative in the gallery avows that Mr Speight did use the words imputed to him, and that lie used them in an offensive manner, and several members of tho House have expressed corroborative opinions. The derisive exclamations heard in tho House yesterday when lie made tho denial must have convinced him that honorable members heard his words and remembered them. Mr Speight certainly has a most fickle or most convenient memory if he forgets that after the adjournment on Wednesday night his uncourteous remarks on a member were made tho subject of much discussion, and that he was mildly rebuked by some ot his immediate associates for being so indiscreet. And what about his correspondence with the member for Tuapeka on tho subject, if, as wo are very creditably informed, tho member for Tuepeka wrote to Mr Speight demanding an explanation, and in reply Mr Speight wrote that he had only used tho expression in a jocular sense, or words to that efiect. What does ho mean by getting up in the House and asserting that he never used such words at all, or any words that can bo so construed. It is all very well for Mr Speight, in his assumption of injured, innocence, to quote Hansard. But that avails nothing with those whose daily experience shows thorn

Low much Hansard reports are manipulated by hon. members. Assertions of the leind be made yesterday, if intensified a hundred fold, will have no effect on those who actually heard his words except to confirm them in the opinion that the member for Auckland City East is a most unreliable person, and that in this particular instance he has acted contemptibly. There was barely a, quornrn in the House last night, and members were arranging to leave for their homes.