OUR REPRESENTATIVES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 6736, 18 September 1883, Page 4

OUR REPRESENTATIVES.

As Messrs M. W. Green and Bracken are so urgently desirous of being " Hansardised," we feel it incumbent upon us to gratify their suicidal inclinations. The subjoined, extracts may serve to " point a moral." The italics are oui' own. The comments will be those of the public :— THE OTAGO HARBOUR BOARD LOANS COSSOUt 5 DATION BILL. (From " Hansard," August "27, p. 251 et seq.) On the second reading of tho bill Mr Green said : The hon. member for Diraedln South had seconded the second reading of this bill. Now he preferred an open foe to a protended friend, and he certainly would have preferred that Eome^ other hon. member had seconded the bill in consistency rather than an hon. member who, while professedly seoonding tho bill, did all he could by his speech to damage the second reading. He had a telegram in his hand, received to-day from Dunedin, in which thero was this , statement: "Herald correspondent reports Fish nnd Eraoken as working for the bill." Now his hon. friend the member for Dunedin Central was the correspondent of the Herald

Mr Brackon wished to make a personal explanation. He protested against the statement of the hon. member. He would like to know how the hon. member knew he was the Herald correspondent. He considered that the hon, member had no business to make auch a statement in the House.

Mr M. W. Green : Can the hon. member deny it ? Mr Bracken would neither affirm nor deny it. The great weakness of the hon. member for Dunedin East was lo swallow the most stupid, the most absurd story that any man could tell him. Mr Speaker said the hon. inemlcr was going beyond a personal explanation. ■ Mr Biacken would take another opportunity of further explaining the hon. gentleman's character.

Mr M. W. Green said there was a measure of truth in what the hon. member for Dunedin Central hid said in regard to his (Mr Green's) swallowing—te use the hon. gentleman's own ■euphemiatio' term—all sorts of stories told him; He must confess that, like other hon.gentlemen, ho had had his days of innocence. When he came to that House, having been in the habit of coming in contact with gentlemen whose words ho could take, he could hardly give credence to the fact that hon. gentlemen would feel justified in telling the most— he was. going to Bay, but it would be moßt unparliamentary— unblushing falsehoods. Mr Speaker said the hon. member must withdraw the words he had used, and apologise to the House for having usei such words. 'He ought not to have lised, such language, either directly or indirectly, towards hon. members. The use of such language viaz an insult, not only to individual inetiibers, but to the whole House.

Mr Mt W. Grean would most heartily apologise, and would simply put it in this way: that non. members, in seeking to accomplish the ends they had in view, endeavoured to make hon. members believe statements which, upon investigation, were found to lack foundation There was only one other

point he wished to notice—ho would not have referred to theao thingß, only that the hon. member had been so unmerciful in hia language at various* times: The hon. gentleman said the gentlemen in Duneilin knew nothing of their own business; that the members of the Chamber of Commerce were merely nincompoops Mr Fish rose to order. Did tho hon. member say that the members of the Dunodin Chamber of. Commerce were nincompoops, or did he assert that he (Mr Fish) had enid ao?

Mr M. W. Green said the purport of the hon. gentleman's language was that they did not know their own business. He (Mr Green)

wanted to point out to the House that they knew their business evidently batter than' the hon. member did; and it was very evident that the hon. member's absence from the Harbour Board was to its advantage. . . . When the hon. gentleman said that the Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce had to telegraph to Wellington for a copy of the bill, ho knew that two copies were sent to the Chairman of the Chamber; and how he could havo the hardihood to re-affirm in that Borne. what he must know to Ie incorrect, he (Mr Green) was at a lons to understand. Mr Fish rone to order. The hon. member said ho had the hardihood to repeat what he knew to be incorrect. He denied it, and the hon. gentleman had no right to make such a charge. - Mr Speaker said that if he had heard the hon. member for Dunedin East use the words he should have called him to order. Did the hon. member use the words ?

Air M. W. Green said he had stated that the hon. member must know it to bfl incorrect. The Speaker said the hon. member aught not to haii made such a statement.

On the motion for committal of the bill (p. 204, et sea.), Mr Fish : The hon. gentleman (Mi Greon) could have whatever opinion of him he thought fit. He (Mr Fish) did not value the hon. gentleman's opinion one single straw; in fact, he would-rather by far have the hon. gentleman's bad opinion than his good opinion, and he would consider that if he had his good opinion he might be termed, as the hon. gentleman had elegantly put it, "extremely crooked." He might say to be dispraised by him was praise indeed; and he felt very much delighted to know that, not now for the first time, but ever since he bad known tho hon. gentleman, he had not his good opinion. He was very glad of it, and he gloried in the fact,' and he trusted that he would never hehave himself in such a way as to merit the hon. gentleman's good opinion, because if he did he would think he was doing that which he ought not to do. Mr Bracken was very glad indoed that this bill had so successfully passed its second reading, and that it was going into Committee. He was sorry that the hon. gentleman who moved it, and made such an eloquent speech, should have made this the occasion for an ebullition of bile. He understood that the House of Representatives was intended for the transaction of public business, and not for men to pry into hon. members' private affairs, arid to come there with every little bit of tittletattle and scandal they might Jiear in the lobbies »r elsewhere. Did be not know the hon. gentleman's character very_ well, he would attribute his action to a kind of bitterness or dislike to himself; but ho did not do anything of the kind, because he knew the hon. member for Dunedin East. Ho knew thit he was. actuated by good-nature, and he knew that he was as soft as a boiled turnip. He had had occasion' to find that this was the case, and if he was not going.out of the way he .vould relate a little incident—he would say nothing bitter, nothing venomous—that occurred botweeen the hon. gentleman, the hon. member for Caversham, and himself, just by way of illustration, to show how reliable the hon. gentleman was, and to prove to the House that he was actuated solely by good-nature. Happening to be coming through Christchurch with him, they had occasion to go into the Exhibition there, and the hon. gentleman asked them to go and inspect the learned pig. He assured him (Mr Bracken) that the learned pig could read and understand English qaite as well as he could. He (Mr Bracken) looked at him with amazement. He said, "Yes, Mr Green, but you must understand that the learned pig 13 taught to understand English by small pieces of grease being placed on the cards."—" But, my dear sir," ho replied," "you do not take me -to be a fool? Surely I am capable of understanding, and I can assure you that ho underst.ind.-i English as well as you or I." That was just one illustration of how gullible the hon. yenileinan vxis. He waa n\aking use of this fact to point out that tho hon. gentleman was not actuated by venom. There was not a particle of venom ia his composition. As he (Mr Bracken) said before, he was as mft an a boiled turnip or a stewed pumpkin.

Mr J. 0. Brown said it was very much to be . regretted that hon. members should make these personal attacks upon each other. His hon. friend the member for Dunedin East had merited all that had been said about him by the very bitter speechhe made at the conclusion of the'debate. The hon. member thought no one could reply to him, and forgot that there would be another opportunity of speaking. He (Jfr Brown) did not wonder at the honourable member for Dunedin South replying, as he had done, with such warmth. He was provoked into doing so by the speech of the honourable member for Dunedin East, and it was to be hoped that this would bo an example to that honourable gentleman, and that they would have no more scenes of the kind they had witnessed that afternoon. It was very unbecoming. .

[This is the first instalment. The report of the fracas on the reading of the Harbour Board Bill shall be published as soon as we receive the " Hansard " containing it.J