AS OTHERS SEE US.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume 29, Issue 1513, 29 October 1898, Page 1

AS OTHERS SEE US.

The Melbourne Argus thus remark* on our Wellington talking shop:— " The New Zealand Legislature was known as tho highest class Parliament of Australasia. It was for long years the' boast of the inland colonics that they surpassed the Australian slates in the character of their Houses, which were at, once more able and more courteous than those of "their neighbours. Alas! no one ventures to make any such claim (o-day. The decadence of tho Nmv Zealand Legislature is admitted, and if—in the spirit of the Spartans, exhibiting their drunken helot as a warn:eg and an example—we wished to show a visitor a specimen of Parliamentary degradation in the colonies, we should infallibly turn to the ill-nlannered, brawling, and reckless Legislature that disgraces tho Wellington of to-day. ... A quite common argument in the House is, wo are told, an invitation to resort to (isticuflW in the lobbies The othor day, one member, being hard pressed in a debate, retorted that his critic's father ' was a notorious drunkard, and had been seven days in gaol for stealing beer'—a statement .vhich is said to bo absolutely untrue, and is equally cruel and infamous if it be correct, for surely it is the pride and boast of a democracy that it onables a man to ' break his birth's invidious bar.' Another member. criticising an ex-Minister, termed hiin ' a miserable coward,' and otherwi e misconducted himself.. Our New Zealand correspondent'has given particulars of other scenes, including the one in which the Minister for Lands was on by the Premier to accuse an. opponent of ' having rubbed nose* with Tottie Sparks.' la ' Tottie ' a female politician, a wire-puller, a caucus promoter, or what, that her personality is so familiar to members? It is noticeable, anyway, that it is only in tho woman's suffrage House that questions about' Totties' arise. Our correspondent mournfully adds,-' The subject most in the mouths of the public just now is tho decadence of Parliament—and no wonder. It is not only tho Pi e.-s correspondents who ielate these tales.'"