WORDS AND WORK

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 154, 29 June 1912, Page 8

WORDS AND WORK

IN PARLIAMENT "HAIR-TRIGGERS" AND WILD RABBITS. {By "Eareye.") PRESS GAT.TiF.BY, Saturday. Given the same Governor and the same retinue of military officers, all openings bf Parliament are the same opening. The same swords, clank on the same spurs till the owners take up the same position of splendid rigour. Captain Shannon's heels and toes this year were where Ms heels and toes were last February and last July, and his face wora the same grave expression. The others were no more changed. It was like a tableau vtvant, fixed to the floor — a stage set-piece that had been put away last February, dusted and furbished up for further iise. It was an identity of scene to join up one session with another and daze the mind momentarily about the passage of time between. The Governor had the comfort of a well-upholstered seat, while he read the Speech, and members who had .to stand (luring the very tedious halfhour had the satisfaction of observing that the Ministers, the perpetrators of the long offence, also had to stand in the front rank— a position which compelled them to seem interested in tkeir own words. A SYMBOL OF CHANGE. Time was when the Press recorders, weary of watching the political gladiatorial games, could gaze through a window at starlings and blackbirds' in quest of the late worm on the tree-girt lawnThe daisy-spangled grass has been rolled up like a scroll, and many of the trees have vanished. The agents of havoc have buried beauty in an ugly grave. Drab mounds, muddy Tuts, and a' batter of broken bricks grieve the retrospective eye. Form, has been shaken into formlessness; it is a fairly accurate symbolical repre^ntation of the "state of parties" and the "political situation." There are the half-bricks and the dirt which the parties have thrown at each other, and all is confusion. The garden is not lovely. PROPHECY— NOTHING DOING. No political underwriters are willing to issue the Government a sick, accident, or life-insurance policy at any premium, but they Temeinber that the much-threatened- Abdul Hamid (no personal comparison is meant) was long a sick man before, the Young Turks push ed him into exile. The Government has not- only to fear death from more or less natural causes, but assassination froma, Brutus and Cassius within ite own ranks. It is like a Blondin on a tightrope .stretched over Niagara, with a. hungry tiger waiting at each end, and yet Oppositionists seem nervous about the issue. The "Continuous Ministry* has survived so much that its chance of life now is not despised, at heart, even by ihe confident Opposition. The Reform Party fears the foe, even though the armour is not shining. Each side is busy with plans of strategy. The Opposition, thirty-eight strong, feels sure — yes, sure — of Mr. j Millar's vote against the Mackenzie Ministry and Mr. Mossey just wants one more aye to the needle of his amendment to enable it to sew a shroud for the TSoverument. That one seems easy to get, according to- the utterances of several politicians who were not Masseyites last February, and yet the Government, by good luck and better "management," hopes to again leave Mr. Massey on Mt. Pisgah, gazing down on a lost Land of Promise. It would be a political miracle, but marvels do happen in politieb. VAULTING AMBITION. Mr. Atmore has had his hour as the man oi power on the see-saw. He is merged among others on the Government end of the plank, and others covet the place which he occupied dizzily while all the House wondered what he would do after his di-amatio performance. Perhaps he will never be so prominent in politics again, for the mathematical laws of probability are heavily against him. Circumstances" helped Nelson's member to hold two parties in his hands, but the balancing feat, ■which was comparatively safe for him, might be dangerous |or an emulator, differently situated in relation to election, or other pledges. It is a big risk for big game-, requiring a big. man — and big men are scarce. MR. PAYNE,. "LION COMIQUE." Extremes meet, and, therefore, Mr. Albert Glover has a. serious rival in Mr. John Payne as the principal political eatertainer of Parliament and the public. In different ways they both seemtotako themselves seriously, though- one suspects method in their ostensibly unconscious humour. Mr.' Payne's rapid sibilant "Mr. Speaker, sir," splif the air frequently on Thursday afternoon. He then gave notice to introduce four Bills, of which two are out of the common, namely: "Workers' Right to Work and Wages Bill," and "Prevention of the Acquirement oi Unearned Increments BilL." This notoriety had piled up on the mound which he had stacked up by his threat two 'or three days ago to make the Government sacrifice the compulsory features of the defence scheme as the price of his support. This terrible pronouncement, .the second-to-last "edition of the Payne mind, has much amused members of both parties. Mr. Payne, pyrotechnical, kaleidoscopic, kinematographic, acrobatic, is a merry Pierrot in the political circus. A VARIEd'dAY. Yesterday afternoon was peaceful tnl the Imprest Supply Bill knocked the parties' heads together. Prior to this disturbance Ihe most notable incident was a request by the member for Southern Maori (Mr. Paraia) that the Government should have a. mutton-bird policy. His complaint was that indifferent mutton birds, wickedly done up in Maori kits to deceive the unwary, <were imported from Tasmania to the detriment of hard-working local mutton-birders (and perhaps to the indignation of the mutton birds themselves). Was it hoped thus to catch the sympathy of the Opposition's Dr. Pomare* The night was noisy. The subject wui mainly the £4.500.000 loaa, with the inevitable tags of "dangling the credit of the country," "unpatriotic actions," and so on. Sir Joseph Ward had grievances .which he voiced lengthily. THE COUNCIL'S GRAVITY. Laughter has been heard in the Legislative Council, but perhaps it was a vag-i-ant specimen that had slipped through a ventilator. This assembly had provocation enough yesterday to laugh boisterously, but, the members remained ac grave as men of marble. Sir William Steward, a new arrival, introduced bis Marriage- Acfc Amendment Bill, that absurd jargon about widows and widowws and deceased husbands* nephews and deceased wives' nieces. Year after year, the House of Representatives after toying playfully with the BUI, in the manner of^ a cat with a mouse, mercifully killed il vt last, but always its progenitor restored it to life in' the following session for another assassination. The public may imagine that Sir William docs thiis merely foe amusement, but lie \t> honestly serious;' if not, it is an excellent^ mock-seriousness. Ho has got it, ( into his head A and lio declinci l«j get it >

out, that sundry widows and widowers and nephews and nieces of the kind just described are suffering an injustice, have so suffered., or will bo Buffer, unless the Marriage Act is weirdly amended to please this persistent knight errant. New Zealand is too busy to bother about such contingencies as romantic attachments of widowers to deceased wives' nieces and widows to deceased husbands' nephews.