WANTED—THE CLOSURE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9620, 19 September 1894, Page 6

WANTED—THE CLOSURE.

TO THE EDITOR. Sib, —I have an intense sympathy with the Hansard reporters during this current session. For men of sense and experience to be compelled to register such shallow drivelling ia bad enough, but for the taxpayers to have to bear the expense of recording in print the shameful stuff that app-ars is woeful. Is there no authority vested in the Speaker by which he can veto the printing of wit less, ghastly, humourless rubbish as E. M. Smith and Lawry have shot into the House? Are our children to be furnished with a weapon of ridicule to chastise their parents memories in order to please such members of the House as those for New Plymouth and Parnell ? But worse than all is the fact that our Government Bit and listen to such senseless, sapless toadyism without reproof or rebuke. And one member of the Ministry is a journalist and a sucking poet to boot. There has been much talk of the fear of constituencies during the debates, but so far as I can see the members have precious little fear before their eyes, except, perhaps, of the head of the Government, to whom they bow with a suppleness that is most humiliating. It is a matter for sorrow that the self-respect of the bulk of the membership is not in itself a corrective of these gross evils. And no! j only are we treated to the wretched meander- : ings in lines, of these men, but we are compelled to sit and read vicious persona) attacks made by members upon outsiders, who have no voice in the Chamber to defend themselves. I never read a more coutemptibie address than that of F. Lawry in reference to R. Monk. A man capable of maligning an absent person before the entire country and the entire world, is not fit for any position of responsibility, and the fact that this man is senior whip to the present Executive, is a reflection on the Ministry of a serious kind. Can we imagine the senior whip of the Liberal party in the House of Commons making use of his position to vilify an exmember in the style that seems native to the member for Parnell. That House would certainly not tolerate it, and the man who would attempt it would soon find his level, ana abide there for ever. We need the closure in New Zealand for such grave cases as I have mentioned, and the sooner we have it the better. E, C. CABB.