THE Bauraki Plains Gazette With which is incorporated THE OHINEMURI GAZETTE' MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, FRIDAY. Motto: Public Service. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1935. ON THE AIR.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume VLI, Issue 3416, 4 December 1935, Page 4

THE Bauraki Plains Gazette With which is incorporated THE OHINEMURI GAZETTE' MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, FRIDAY. Motto: Public Service. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1935. ON THE AIR.

MR SAVAGE has announced that arrangements will be made to “put Parliament on the air,” his explanation being that there is “no reason why the people should be deprived of the right” to hear members speaking. As they have not in the past possessed this “right”—in the sense in which Mr Savage uses the expression — they cannot, of course, be deprived of it. . Any attempt by some sinister if unimaginable organisation to prevent the public from knowing what Parliament is saying would no doubt be resented, but so far that danger has not threatened. The sessions are open to the public and the press, and the representatives of the press are considerably more regular jn attendance, and more attentive to what is said, because their duty demands this of them, than any member of the public. By the ordinary public the right and privilege of seeing Parliament at work are, excepting on special occasions, generally acknowledged by a failure to exercise them. Parliamentary debates—which, strictly speaking, are not as much debates as the delivery of a series of prepared speeches, disturbed or, more rarely, helped along by interjections undistinguished by their brilliance —are regarded as a poorish form of entertainment. That they have their value as a revelation of what members are thinking and saying is unquestionable; but the revelation may prove dis- , illusioning to the listener. It is possible that the average newspaper reader does not give credit to the press—that much-malign-ed institution—for its merciful curtailment of, and. improvement of, the Parliamentary oration, nor appreciate that the reasonably word-perfect addresses in Hansard are revised by members themselves prior to publication. Too many sincere and pains-taking Parliamentarians are, if the truth be told, prone to the nervous affliction of the United States politician John Quincey Adams, who, confessinghis inadequacy as an orator, admitted: “Sometimes, from inability to furnish the words to finish a thought commenced, I begin a sentence with pronrietv and pnd it with nonsense.” Of the next Parliament, however, the truth need not be told, provided the technical difficulties of broadcasting the. proceedings are overcome, for it will betray itself- qnontaneously, in polished rr limninv sentences, to pvp , *v nf the AnnetituenP ipc i-nblie mav iudge i-i- hsis missed in the past thtA-io-h I'ts having had the of n’arliamnrtqw nroepoffin And if, wilfully, a knob is twisted and a

dial revolves here and there as the accommodating air is searched for other forms of radio entertainment, members will. not be aware of it. While the microphone sits provokingly before them, they will address it, just as in the past they have kept talking so long as a single reporter remained in the press gallery. But it will be comforting to listeners to know that they can always turn from a dull discussion in the House of Representatives to some feature of a programme that may be entertaining as well as instructive.