THE OTAGO WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1928. THE SPEAKERSHIP.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20583, 5 December 1928, Page 8

THE OTAGO WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1928. THE SPEAKERSHIP.

The first act which the new House of Representatives, upon its assembling yesterday, was required to perform was that of electing its Speaker, in whom is reposed the guardianship of its rights, privileges, and independence. To this oflice Sir Charles Statham, who occupied it in the two preceding Parliaments, was re-elected without opposition. The minds of the members, who have sat under Sir Charles during the past six years there and have a jealous regard for the maintenance of decorum and dignity in the proceedings of the House, cannot have entertained for a single moment the idea of superseding him in his office. The name of Sir Maurice O’Rorke lives in the history of the country as the most distinguished of the Speakers of the past. Sir Maurice possessed the advantage over all. the other Speakers, both before him and after him, that he occupied the Chair for an exceptionally long period—for some nineteen years in all. Inevitably, high traditions clustered around the Speakership of a member in whom the confidence of successive Parliaments was reposed for so many years. It has to be acknowledged, however, that Sir Maurice O’Rorke was not an equally efficient Speaker throughout the whole of the term for which he held his office. While he was in the full enjoyment of his powers, he was probably the most capable member who has ever held the position, but in the later years of his Speakership be was certainly inferior to Sir Charles Statham. It was observed by Sir Charles, upon the one occasion in the past session on which the privilege of making a speech in Parliament was accorded to him—the valedictory occasion—that during the six years for which he has already occupied the Chair there has never been a “ scene ” in the House and no member has received the censure of the House. Wliile that fact constituted a testimony to the orderliness of tha Parliament of New Zealand, it also implied a great tribute to the Speaker of the House. Speaking on the same occasion the Leader of the Labour Party claimed for the Parliament of New Zealand that “ it does not take second place to any Parliament in the British Commonwealth of Nations in the matter of its standards of debate and general line of conduct.” This ,■ reputation is, as Mr Holland added, largely due to the “ utter impartiality ” of Sir Charles Statham, “to the fairness with which he applies the Standing Orders and also to ithe rigour , with which he very

often applies them.” Almost necessarily, in the heat of debate, the feelings of members occasionally become overcharged and their tempers somewhat frayed, and it must be ascribed in considerable measure to the respect in which the Speaker was entertained by the House and to the .influence exerted by him over the House that there was in the last two Parliaments no untoward incident to tarnish the favourable reputation of the Legislature of the country. Of that reputation the whole of the people of the Dominion have cause to,. be proud, and it should, therefore, be a mattcir of satisfaction to them that Sir Charles Statham will fill the office of Speaker during the present Parliament.