MOODS OF THE HOUSE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22883, 18 May 1936, Page 10

MOODS OF THE HOUSE

A DRAMATIC MINISTER PARLIAMENTARY STAGECRAFT By Bernice E. Shackletox. The moods of Parliament are like the moods of a woman —they change with the hour and the company. The House that droned its way into the committee stages of the Factories Amendment Act sparkled with repartee that same evening under of consciousness of galleries crowded with delegates to the National Party Conference. And it was not the Opposition, but the Labour members, the Minister of Labour in particular, who seemed most prepared to contribute to the entertainment value of the sitting. Rather one should say it was the impulse, irresistible in Mr Armstrong, to deliver a mocking thrust or two in the presence of these onlookers that swung the debate for a while out of argument into derision. Tbe derision of responsible men is one ot Labours mistakes. Jt is a mistake of stagecraft, like putting burlesque in a dignified setting. It spoils the piece. Jn the coming week the second reading debate on the Transport Licensing Amendment Bill will locus interest again on the Minister, who has the greatest dramatic sense of any in the Labour ranks. This faculty in Mr Semple has borne the selfeducated man on wings of oratory to Cabinet rank. It gives him a unique value to a-Government bent on capturing the imagination of the masses to win them to the Socialist ideal. Mr Semple, of course, is not an actor only. The man who broke Australian records for tunnelling when he managed the Orongorongo Co-operative tunnelling project in 11)21-24 knows men, knows engineering, and knows his own mind. But his phrases run through street-corner talk when Ids workmanship is forgotten. Some of the dramatic force of his words is lost in the reasonable atmosphere of Parliament. The sobbing sentence turns to a laugh under the cynicism of experienced politicians, though Mr Semple may turn that laugh again to his own purposes. Vet a phrase that is made in the parliamentary atmosphere has not the same chance of immortality—except in Hansard, perhaps—as one that catches the kindred workmen by the ears on a clay mould by the Ashley River. And if Mr Semple is broadcast, he will probably not be, at that moment, the inspired man who sweeps his tenses away with a gesture and tosses argument down with a flourish. MR SEMPLE’S WALK. Mr Semple’s oratory is dramatic and his legislation is dramatic. The same quality juts out in his Ministerial routine. He treats a private interviewer like a public meeting. His very walk into the chamber is an entrance. This long, lean man dresses with care, adding always as a final touch a carnation in his buttonhole. He goes to his scat with a slow, rhythmical stroll that is suggestive of the deliberate movements of a svelte woman or of a subdued tragedian. That walk is something to envy. No other man in the House has the same air. Mr J. A. Lee has, it is true, a deliberate stroll that might be a copy of it, but he is more of a moandcrer. Mr Coates makes a commanding entry, yet somewhat stiffly. He jerks a little. Mr Semple glides. The Minister glides into his orations, too. with a sepulchral voice, which leaps suddenly to a treble note and trills there for a while before it plunges again among the full orchestrations of denunciation and declamation. If that the present woes of the worker arc not enough, he will plunge hack to England’s industrial revolution. The Factories Bill prompted Mr A. S. Richards also to historical study, but, whereas he returned only to Seddon, Mr Semple seemed to echo through the corridors of time.

One is tempted to write in hyperbole on Mr Semple because lie speaks in hyperbole, and his thinking is grandiose. Has lie not lived in turmoil? And in, turmoil one emits utterances. The voice that speaks from the end front bench to the right of the Speaker’s chair rose above the murmur inn of 1913 when specials wore mobilised to meet the emergencies of tiie watersidcra’ strike. It was silenced for a while in prison and quieted magnificently for a season when the authorities bound Mr Semple over to keep the peace for 12 months under the heaviest bond (£2000) ever imposed on any Labour representative. Tbjs is the stuff that makes a man dramatic. Mr Lee has the dramatic touch also, but in his art —in his dual arts, writing and speaking. The author of “ Children of the Poor” and “Hunted" is a tireless talker. Conversationally he likes to talk with a pencil or pen in his hand, ns if that assisted the flow of his words. He smiles on Ids inward thought. Oratorically he begins often with a balanced piece of invective. “if the honourable member would know what unrelieved weariness is, let him make a gramophone record of himself and listen to it for a while.” He enjoys a choice phrase, and bows to it in transit. A PARADOX. By a paradox the most silent men in the machinery of the House are those that preserve all its words. The Hansard men occupy unobtrusively the centre of the floor, but their work is like the signature to a picture. It gives the speeches of the members a final authenticity. It is not quite true to say, however, that even they report verbatim, for some members leave their sentences hanging in the air, and some are not so elegant in utterance ns they would be in their own imaginings. Therefore, the Hansard men have often to do the best they can to dress up the speeches. The members of the New Zealand Parliament have, indeed, a greater right of revision than is allowed in other Parliaments. Tins may be in recognition of the fact that only a small percentage of the members speak so perfectly that they can be transcribed literally. Yet the proportion of good speakers has increased under the Labour Government.

The most perfect speech-maker to the reporter’s ears is probably Mr Barnard, whose accession to the Speakership is a loss in debate, though Mr Mason, when he first came to the House, was a very deliberate speaker. His rate was about 00 words a minute, but his manner was perfect. Mr Nash’s rapid fire runs up to 200 words a minute. Mr Clyde Carr outstrides the rest for vocabulary. He puts the Hansard men to the test. But no member can surpass Sir Apirana Ngata for perfection of English or beauty of lyric style. Sometimes in the committee stages of a Bill when,, unfortunately in this case, speeches arc not reported, he rises to great literary and descriptive heights. THE NAME “HANSARD.”

It may be said in passing that the name “ Hansard,” though derived from the original printer of parliamentary debates and adopted in overseas British Parliaments, is not generally used in the House of Commons. At Westminster members speak less picturesquely of “ the official reports of debates.”

But the volumes of Hansard are in the New Zealand Parliament good property as well as good records. Mr Semple thumps the pages, and Mr Smith holds up the open book. Mr' Smith Las a quick, excited way of speaking, like a man who is eager for tbo fray, and bis challenging manner and matter generally provoke an uproar and a lively exchange of repartee. He sits on the end front bench on the loft hand of the Speaker's chair, directly opposite to Mr Semple, and lie, too, holds the House when, lie is tip, though not by deliberate stagecraft. Ho holds it by the unstudied sincerity of Ills protest, and by indignation that is weighted with appeal rather than with derision. And lie can change the mood of the House in a flash.