PARLIAMENTARY ECHOES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 914, 6 September 1889, Page 10

PARLIAMENTARY ECHOES.

[By a Parliamentarian.] The reproach so frequently made that there is only one Colonial Treasurer m the Colony has had the effect of inciting various ambitious gentlemen to the study m finance. Of the new school of financiers the most conspicuous are Mr Hutchison and Dr Ne wrnan, both of whom are entitled to credit rather for boldness than for success in the work they have undertaken. Generally speaking, the results achieved are amusing, but unsatisfactory. On some fine afternoon the member for Thorndon will beg to asK the question standing to his n^ me ’ which probably requests information as to the mamiet* in which the sum of £4446 IS $ shown in table D 199 J as standing to credit it? invested. The Treasurer, who has not been listening, being informed that question so and so is asked, suddenly unlaces his legs and jumps to his feet, peers through his. spectacles at the Order Paper and says doubtfully that he doesn’t understand tne question ; perhaps the hon. gentleman will explain it. Explanation of a question of this sort is always difficult and sometimes impossible : but Dr Newman gallantly plunges into the breach, ' the while Mr Hufchison smiles approvingly. Sir Harry Atkinson thereupon makes a statement, the general effect o which is either that there is no such balance, or that it is swallowed up by equivalent liabilities, or that something else is the.fact ; but that in any case Dr Newman is quite wrong. Mr Hutchison, happening on the scene with a sly question, is similarly served, and everybody is satisfied. “ I don’t understand it at all,” says one practical gentleman to bis neighbour, “ but the country’s apparently safe, thank God.” * * * * Two other mam hers who dabble in finance (tHe leader of the Opposition, as a person necessarily familiar with the work of all departments, is “barred”) aro Mr Macarthur and Mr Ward. Time was when Mr Turnbull would ask an occasional question about sinking funds, securities, debentures and other luxuries, but he ha 3 subsided, into silence now, and contents himself with enjoying the discomfiture of others. _ Mr Ward i 3 a sort of born financier, who talks in figures. Ready for a speech, the member for Awarua is arrayed in columns of figures involving calculations, deductions, quotations, comparisons, and general unhappiness, lathe past he has confined himself to postal finance (upon which there is nothing to be said when he sits down}, but now he also evinces a tendency to putting questions bearing on finance. As to Mr Macarthur. he is of a different class. The private opinion of this writer is that the moves which Mr Macarthur is not up to are emphatically not worth learning. A very vigorous speaker when in tne humour, he is ordinarily odo of those men who have the rare faculty—as Mr Mitchelron has —of listening. He Bits quietly in that far-away corner of his, at the rear of the Government benches, and what is some men’s discomfiture 'is his gain. One of these days Mr Macarthur must be a very prominent man in New Zealand politics.

Silent men ! What a fascinating chapter might be written of the men whose names are writ large in the pages of. New Zealand history, who butare silent now—soma because they have gone to that bourne to which all candidates are returned, others because they have dropped out of the ceaseless strife of politics into the comparative quiet of private life. If you look through the pages of Hansard (dry reading, be warned) of a few years ago you will find the names of Sir Edward Stafford, Sir William Fitzberbert, Sir Julius Vogel, aud Sir William Fox in the lead everywhere ; for in those days Stafford and Fitzherbert, against Fox and Vogel, represented by turns the ins and the outs. 4 Whoever hears now of Sir William Fox and Sir Edward Stafford—in a political sense I mean, of coarse? A little later and Mr Sheehan and Mr Reader Wood are, in a lesser degree, prominent figures. The first named gentleman died after a short but brilliant career. His evil deeds are written in brass, f ut his ability and rare power of speech are not forgotten. Old hands will tell you of the felicity with which he could quote Scripture ; of the dramatic style in which lie inferentially denounced a-gentle-man now in the House (and who shall be nameless) as “a measureless liar ; and how he conferred upon four members the honorable title of "the plugless word-spouts of the House.” The House has never seen Mr Sheehan’s equal as a whip, and perhaps his best stroke of business was when, daring the abolition of provinces struggle, be put thirteen Opposition men into thirteen beds erected in the lobby by Mr Barff, then Government whip, for Ministeralists. Mr Reader Wood is remembered for his possession of two dissimilar characteristics —-he was a remarkably eloquent man, and he had remarkably large feet ! Sir Edward Stafford's claim to remembrance is his great ability as a debater, and Sir William Fox is renowned, if for anything, for his vigour and occasional acerbity. Still further back and Mr Fitz Gerald, Mr Weld, Mr Carleton, Mr Travers, Mr Sewell, Mr Gibbon Wakefield, and others, are leading lights. But whoever thinks now of the days of the giants ? 6 * * * * But of all silent men, and before all the loquacious ones, so far as this Colony is concerned, is Mr Ormond —a still strong man in a blatant House. Why on earth he takes the trouble to get elected to Parliament it is difficult to guess. He has to contest a constituency where a large number of people are bitterly opposed to him, where the English language is not extensive enough to serve for his denunciation, and for which he has done more than any man in New Zealand has done for a district —barring, perhaps. Sir George Grey’s services to Auckland. Then Mr Ormond is not ambitious. With preßtige enough to qualify him to lead a party, and ability enough to enable him to do it, he takes no prominent part, but sits beside Mr Valentine day after day and week after week, only rising with that peculiar prefatory “Surr” of his ? h&lf-a-

1 dozen times in the course of a session. As a political speaker he has no superior in the House—in reviewing or condemning a policy no equal. The House has few debaters now. There are word-spouts enough, and glib tongues in plenty, but only a very small number of men who are abm or effective speakers ; but in the days when Sir George Grey was younger—when Mr Reader Wood, Major Atkinson, and Mr utout were at their best—Mr Ormond was second to none of them, and his speech in the historic encounter with Sir George Grey in IV7 has perhaps never been equalled in our Parliament for force, clearness, aud effect. Rut then he is a landholder, aud that nullifies all his ability and strength of character. In these days you must be a demagogue or nothing. 4 # t A subject upon which a good deal might be written is that of the idiosyncracies, mental and physical, of, members. Upon some fane day in the future we will discuss the mental phase, with due respect to Major Stewards feelings with regard to the questions of education and licensing committees ; to Mr Barron as “ the apostle of retrenchment ; to Dr Newman’s bitter hostility to all manner of. harbour board expenditure, and various other weaknesses. The simple habits and mannerisms of members when they are speaking are worth noticing, however. Mr Hurst, who died a year or two ago, was wont, when moving for that annual return of Ministerial expenses, to gesticulate wildly, pince-nez in hand, and Dr Newman, who used to sit in the same seat, has much the same habit, except that he has no pincenez. Sir Robert Stout always threw the tails of ‘his long black coat aside by. putting his hand in his trousers pocket. Sir Harry Atkinson, with hands in pockets aud head thrust forward, is the most fightable-looking parson imaginable. Mr Seddon, who talks more than anybody else, ha 3 no mannerisms, nor has Mr Fish. Indeed, facility for speaking would seem to have a sort of disinfecting effect against habits, for Mr Goldie (who talks so very quickly that you can't tell what he is saying and consequently have time _to observe him) is quite a machine; lacking all emotion; and Major Jackson who also speaks very rapidly, has no habits of any kind. Mr Garrick, certainly one of the fastest and clearest speakers of recent years, never moved a hand. Mr Swanson honest Willie Swanson, now toned down by the softening influence of the soporific air of “ another place’’—used simply to lie down on his desk and spread his arms out like a bird on the wing ; and Mr Monk,. whose natural eloquence is unsurpassed in this House, has much the same habit.