UNPARLIAMENTARY EXPRESSIONS.

New Zealand Mail, 27 August 1902, Page 6 (Supplement)

UNPARLIAMENTARY EXPRESSIONS.

One honourable member may say that another’s statement is untrue ni fact, but not that it is knowingly untrue ; and there are abundant, precedents for saying that honourable gentlemen have deliberately broken faith.

One must nor talk of the “shall) practice” of hon. members, or call the supporters of the Government “subservient creatures,” or all'ude to the utterance of a Minister as a “swindling speech,” or use the phrase “another Treasury swindle.” Mr John Burns once spoke of a peroration as couched in the “language of the pot-house and breathing the spirit of the prize-ring,” and on being called to order substituted the w r ords, “language of the Stock Exchange,” which were allowed to pass. Mr T. W. Russell was called to order for applying the term “Handy Andy” to another honourable member from Ireland.

Colonel Saunderson spoke of the Rev'. Father M'Fadden, an Irish priest, as “a murderous ruffian,” and a tempest arose, which the gallant member appeased by asking leave to substitute “excited politician. —From “Parliament: Its Romance, its Comedy, its Pathos,” by Michael MacDonagh.