The Lyttelton Times. WEDNESDAY, NOV. 18. 1878.

Lyttelton Times, Volume L, Issue 5531, 13 November 1878, Page 2

The Lyttelton Times. WEDNESDAY, NOV. 18. 1878.

A I*AKI,UMBMXABY BCSsioU IIOITtWO lives. One tatty bo called its official B nd outward life; and the other its domestic and inner life. And the latter jo often the truer indct of its character. The same ta»y bo said of ovory man. There ia the life of the man, prepared for the public gaze, like an official letter upon paper of certain dimciißions, with measured margin, written in a clerical hand, composed in balanced and elastic phraseology, duly numbered and dated, and carefully formalised from the opening “ Sir" to tho concluding " I have the honour to bo.” And there is tho life of the man, natural and unconstrained, like tho aoribblo of a schoolboy homo, ill-spelt, almost illegible, and not unblotted, bat genuine and characteristic in every line. There ia, however, ao far os wo are concerned, an important distinction between Parliament and Man. We have no right to criticise human life in its private phase. An Englishman's house ie his castle. Bub Parliament con claim no such privilege. All that wo shall venture to criticise is os open to tho public as Hansard. But it is not found in that decorous, though rather dull, official publication. Hansard docs nothing, or little, to enable us to know the inner life of a Parliament, and to understand its manners and customs. Perusers of those pages are bewildered, I and generally disappointed. All the dramatic by-play is necessarily absent. And it must be admitted, without imputing anything offensive, that revision of speeches by the speakers tends to create a rather dead level of mediocrity. Good speeches lose, and inferior speeches gain, by this planing process. All of them are too much like essays that get “honourable mention” at a school examination. Properly to realise a debate is to get it fresh from the hands of reporters overnight. Telegraphy has cut us off from that enjoyment. A speech boiled down into a short summary, and deprived of theatrical incident, is not a “counterfeit presentment.” And that process also necessitates undue assimilation. Hansard is still worse. A pamphlet of debates a week old, containing fifty or sixty pages in small print of speeches which have not only passed through the lips, but through the hands, of honourable members, is too much for any but the strongest political stomach. There are, we believe, persons who unflinchingly do their Hansards regularly, line by line, and do so from a stem sense of duty to themselves and to their country. We sincerely trust that both benefit thereby, and we willingly accord our tribute of admiration to the strength of their constitution and their patriotism.

During last session, as daring preceding sessions of late years, there has been a general complaint of want of animated debates and of exciting eloquence. We believe that the complaint is just, and we attribute tbe fact to tbe combination of several causes. One cause—we refer to the fixture of tables before all members—may appear trifling, but it baa worked materially in the direction indicated. Tables have led to voluminous notes, and books, and papers of reference; and they have led to more of quantity than of quality of speaking. Speaking has, in fact, mostly degenerated into talking; and we attribute it greatly to tbe material aid to talkativeness provided for each member. The necessity of a greater mental effort in addressing the House would lessen the number and improve the character of speeches. Another disadvantage to oratory is the press of public business before the House; and we are now not referring to the Legislative Gouncil, for the absence of oratory there is owing to special causes arising from its constitution and functions. Tho House, as we were saying, is oppressed by practical work, and is averse, as a rule, to long speeches of display. The same influence is at work in the House of Commons, and the decrease of eloquence there during tho last thirty years is undoubted. Tho great speakers can now be counted on the fingers, and belong almost to a former generation. There is another special deteriorating influence at present in our House of Representatives, and that is the want of organised parties and recognised leaders. A great stimulus to good speaking is that the speaker is one of a defined party working together, encouraging and emulated by each other, and led by one who reciprocally relies on, and is relied on by, his followers. As it is, when that combination is wanting, mutual sympathy does not exist, and each man talks more and speaks worse. Thei'e is nothing more animating to a speaker than when his points are made more telling hy the cheers of his own party, and more inciting to his abilities than when he feels that he docs not merely represent himself but a considerable section of his audience. The general effect upon the House of this absence of parties was remarkable. Ministers, relieved from steady and definite pressure from without, became themselves unstable and disunited. Sir George Grey is tho Hamlet of tho House. His few speeches are great soliliques. Ho has a great mission to fulfil, hut ho fails in tho fufilmont. Tho world is out of joint, but he does not show that he was bom to sot it right. He does not “ suit tho action to tbe word, tho word to tho action.” When wo contrast tho Premier upon the platform at Christchurch, turning, to use his own metaphor, his back upon the past, and his face to tho future, with the Premier upon tho Treasury Bench at Wellington, facing sideways, wo ask him, in tho words of tho Prince to which we compare him, how it is that thus “ Tho native hue of resolution I« (ioklied o’er with the pale east of thought, Ami enterprise* of great pith and moment, With tlii* regard, their current* turn away, And loao tho name of action." Wo are afraid that Sir George Grey has fallen into tho mistake of declaring pronounced views, and at tho same time having unpronounced colleagues to give effoot to them. His Ministry is, as Burke said of a Ministry formed by Chatham, " a cabinet variously inlaid ” —“ a tcsselated pavement without cement, boro a bit of black stone, and there a bit of white.” and we fear that, like Chatham, ho finds that “ when he had executed his plan, he had not on inch of gVound to stand upon; when, ho bad accomplished hie scheme of

administration, he was no longer a Minister,”

But if the head of the ship of State !« all round the compass, the Opposition is in a worse plight. It has no head, or rather it has several heads, 'fho difficulty is to particularise the tail. Wo are reminded of those toy 'pictures in which different beads con be respectively adjusted to one conventional body. Major Atkinson would bo, wo should suppose, the one head, but if ho is, wo should say, judging from last session, that •' it has on (indistinguishable shape.” It is a detruncated bead, artificially balanced upon the top of the body. It is merely kept there till another head can bo induced to grow. Wo have bad a series of experimental heads, in the hope that one at least may bo made permanent by the process of natural selection. But in that respect the session closed unsuccessfully. Wo have

bad a bead with two faces from Mr Whitaker; a nagging head from Mr George M'Lean; a denunciatory head

from Mr Fox; a head of didactic morality from Mr Rolleeton; a head of shocked propriety from Mr Bowen; and a tongue, if not a head, of satirical vituperation from Mr Wakefield. And

there has been a host of headlings more or loss monitory and minatory. What the result may be next session, we know not. But during the last session the effect has been to disunite and to weaken. The session has been like a pianoforte played by one who does not know a note of music. It may bo the music of the future, bht certainly we do not recognise it as the music of the past or the present. There are some other interesting domestic traits of Parliamentary life, but wa must postpone them to another occasion.