A POLITICAL JOKE

Evening Star, Issue 21935, 23 January 1935, Page 14

A POLITICAL JOKE

* “ WASHERS AND MAKGLERS BILL ” The world laughed in the ’nineties at one of the most astounding and comical political jokes ever perpetrated in a Parliament ■of the British Empire. It happened in New Zealand, then classed as a colony, whose Parliament had just embarked on an experiment in arbitration and established throughout the length and breadth of the two islands groups of conciliation boards—the first in the Empire—with a mission to try and adjust, if it were humanly possible, the constantly recurring differences between capital and labour (writes “ L.C.W.,” in the ‘Sydney Alorning Herald ’). The system worked so well in the early years that it was adopted iu Australia and other parts of the Empire, and is still functioning, although with less, enthusiasm than when the scheme was launched. With the con-stantly-growing demands for sectional committees in industries hitherto controlled by one board, administration costs grew rapidly and alarmed the general taxpayer. It was at this period in arbitration history that the great joke was perpetrated. There were two Bucklands in the New Zealand House of Representatives in those days—J.C., a farmer, and W.F., an astute Waikato la’wyer and a wag. On n private members’ day W.F. produced a Bill of which lie had previously given notice. In a brief introduction on the merits and demerits of arbitration and conciliation he tabled what was titled the “ Washers and Manglers Bill,” which prescribed working hours, rates of pay, and employment conditions for the laundry people, and included a schedule specifying the " rates chargeable for articles washed and ironed or put through the mangle. The Bill passed its first reading without comment, hut during the -week-end adjournment of the House someone in authority scanned the Bill, saw the joke, and brought it under the notice of Mr Speaker—either Sir Maurice O’Rorke or Alajor Stewart, T forget which. The Bill promptly disappeared from the order paper and was wiped off the records of the House so completely that to-day a copy is not procurable, and the newspapers of the time, so far as I have been able to discover, have missed an historic incident iu their indexes.