SOLID WOOD.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 19 December 1928, Page 10

SOLID WOOD.

PRIME MINISTER’S DESK

A THUMPING ORDEAL

It is just as well that the Prime Minister's desk-top in the House- of Representatives is made of solid wood, xt came through a severe ordeal during the early hours of Saturday morning, when the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Ward thumped, hammered, and banged his way through portion of his reply to the prolonged debate on the second reading or the Finance Bill, says the “Dominion.”* The Prime Minister rose at 2.30 a.m. He was in vigorous inooci, aiid his style became declamatory when he again referred to his discovery of what lie had termed “an important London transaction.” The late Minister of Finance had left over that matter for him to settle

“That is very unfair,” interjected the Hon. W. D. Stewart

“Very,” echoed the Leader of the Opposition (Right Hon. ,J. G. Coates). Bang! An ordinary desk-top would have he_en splintered like matchwood,' but the solid timber of the principal Treasury bench withstood that, and the subsequent blows, as the Prime Minister, using his left hand as a hammer and brandishing his pince-nez with his right, warmly retorted: “Apparently the honourable gentlemen are taking their defeat rather badly. 1 said to my colleagues before we took possession that there was something in the air. If our friends opposite think we had not noticed that they ar© very unobservant indeed.”

“What on earth is the right honourable gentleman talking about?” inquired Mr. Coates. “He might at least be frank and candid.” “You ask your ex-Minister of Finance to be candid,” retorted the Prime Minister, who was proceeding in the same strain, when Mr. Speaker reminded him that he must address the chair.

A little later Sir Joseph Ward referred to Mr. Coates as the Prime Minister—not Ins first lapse of memory since the Reform Government vacated the Treasury benches. “You called him Prime Minister,” said a Reform member.

The Prime Minister (with a smile): 1 Then I made a mistake. I apologise to the Prime Minister. (Government laughter.) Mr. J. A.. Nash (Palmerston) was the next to incur Ministerial displeasure. “Who is that interjecting?” demanded tlio Prime Minister sharply. “Let him come and see me afterwards and be educated. 1 am talking to the honourable gentlemen in the House at present.”'

The desk-top again came into prominence when Sir Joseph. Ward branched off into an explanation of the circurn--stances of his appointment as Minister; of Finance in the National Cabinet. “What is the use of trying to twist history?” he asked, hammering at the desk anew. Papers fluttered to the floor. These the Minister of Education quietly retrieved. Once more the Prime Minister was drawn into a personal encounter, this time with Mr. F. Waite, whom he described as the “brilliant, powerful, brainy member for Clutha,” who had made “a fifth-rate speech,” and who had been “teaching his grandmother, figuratively, how to suck eggs.” (Laughter.) With a smile Sir Joseph Ward later drew a little character sketch of himself. He was a good actor, lie said, in seeking to dispel an assertion that he was annoyed. He never looked annoyed when he was, he said, and sometimes when he showed his teeth he was not angry. (Laughter In concluding the Prime Minister said he would close by calling the Opposition “his dear opponents,” for whom his party had a great deal of regard and from whom they expected the same consideration as was given to them.