THE LAST BURLESQUE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22907, 15 June 1936, Page 10

THE LAST BURLESQUE

MR HERRING'S STORY

IN THE EMPTY HOUSE WHAT MR SAVAGE SEES By BeBNICE E. SIIACKLETON. The corridors of Parliament arc lonely now, lonely with the hush that falls after the tension of the fight and the hilarity of the last good fellowship. Yet still a few strangers sit docile, with cap bptweon the knees, outside the glass door of the Prime Minister's Department, and wait nervously for their interview. But the nervousness that possessed the new members of Parliament when they entered the strange spaciousness of their new living disappeared,completely in the last week. Its final quiver passed in the gusts of laughter in which members rocked and shouted during the mock trial that burlesqued their own solemnity. The members have a quick appreciation of each other's whimsicalities. Before ever Mr Mason had taken the platform with the Motor Vehicles Amendment Bill he had been named "Long Tack Sam." He is the thinnest man in the House. His shanks poke an extra 10 inches out of his trousers. And Mr Jones, singing on one treble note through all his speeches, was " The Boy Soprano " long before he faced the microphone. Ho has a boyish face, dark hair, lively eyes and a mouth that shows his feelings quickly. There should be more inflexion with such youthfulness. There was not, however, much flexibility auywhero in the Cabinet until the last relaxation. Mr Armstrong has been like a taut wire for some time, twanging to any touch. Mr Sullivan looked drawn of late, his smile a' little forced when it travelled along to the end of the front row. In the last week or two the • inner light waned in Mr Nash's face. But Mr Savage rested easily behind his desk. " I'm as happy as a king," lie said to Mr Forbes. GROWING RESTLESSNESS. The final two days were curious days. Wednesday began at 10.30 a.m. and finished at, 2.30 a.m. Thursday began at 2.30 p.m. and finished at 3.30 p.m. The long sitting on the Broadcasting Bill effected no amendments. It was the Opposition's last fight in a session—or part of a session—that Government members refer to proudly as a record for legislation. It was an odd sitting, in which an extra element of facetiousness overlaid the serious discussion and worried the Chairman of Committees. Mr Howard often looked quizzically over the top of his glasses and murmured with sorrowful shake of his head. " It's not in the Bill—not in the Bill." Mr Nash deplored "a tendency to make Parliament a farco to-night." But Mr Broadfoot, bubbling with good spirits and discussable points, was continually up, wagging his pencil at the Chairman. Mr Schramm, after fraternising in Opposition seats, produced an absurd and alliterative list of gramophone records which Mr Poison might make. Mr Lyon was as restless as his caged namesake. The Speaker chatted agreeably among the members. As the night wore towards morning many curled into a comfortless and shameless sleep, flat in their benches, unconscious of the stealthy air ot conviviality that was already dawning towards the next day's camcraderio. THE MOCK PARLIAMENT.

Amidst all the red upholsterings and hangings of the Legislative Chamber the members of the Council spent Thursday morning and a little of the afternoon speaking their last words on the Broadcasting Bill while .the members of the Lower House waited with an eye on train time tables. The House of Representatives met for the final formalities before a batch of Bills became, Acts, and adjourned for a few minutes and met again for the last rites on the Broadcasting Bill, and the courtesies of farewell. In that concluding interval of waiting the spirit of mischief, never very far away, took hold of the members unrestrainedly. , All the session's jousting between Mr Kyle and the Speaker was recosnised in Mr Kyle's election to the Speaker's chair. He galumphed to the dais in his tweeds, waved his arms heroically and arraigned Mr Herring before the bar of the House. The member for Mid-Canterbury was commanded to show reason why he should not be guillotined. Over the uproar and clamours of "Point of order," the " Speaker " shouted louder, " Order! " while Mr Herring, pale as a fish, shy as a gaby clown dallying for his cue, opened his mouth and shut it again. But not one of his sparse hairs turned though every wit poured on his head accusations and advice, until at last,, one louder than the rest, moved that the prisonei at the bar be permitted to tell bis famous story. Mr Herring edged on his toes, and between laughter and interjections the story emerged. Here it is abridged. One day a doctor who had been reading statistics met a friend walking down the road, and in the ensuing conversation he told him that a man shrank half an inch every year after the ape of 00. The friend went on and met Methuselah.

"And how old are you?" he asked Methuselah.

"Oh, I eat well and I sleep well," vas the reply, " but I find it hard to keep my shoelaces out of my eyes." The accused was acquitted.

The ringing of the bells summoning the House to sit broke off the rest of the nonsense. The Broadcasting Bill became an Act. Political enemies spoke to each other appreciatively as friends, anil Mr Speaker warned them in parting that next session he would be more severe in keeping order. The masculine strains of "God Save the King" soared up to the dark hangings between the gallery pillars. MR SAVAGE SUMS UP. Mr Savage sits today, a '.ittle man in a large room that seems at first to require the presence of other men, the Cabinet members who will go on taking their places during the races* at each square of pink blotting paper on the long table. " What do you think of the results of the first part of the session?" the interviewer asked him.

The Prime Minister began to speak for public utterance. "We have taken power to do big things. We have absolute control of public credit, but while that power remains only on the Statute Book it will not get us very far. We must begin to administer. We want to turn New Zealand into a nation of buyers as well as of sellers. We want people to have access to what they are producing." " What of the psychological effect of the legislation ? "

" I know this, that whereas people had lost hope they are hoping to-day. One cannot address large meetings throughout the country without sensing the feeling of the people." "If you went out of office to-mor-row. . . ?"

" If we went out of office to-morrow what we have done would not be wiped out. We have created precedents." "What about the small investor with only a moderate income derived from the' interest on his earnings? There are signs that he is nervous." "He has no need to he. He will have the opportunity of investing in a national system of supcrannatiou, a contributory

system without the humiliation of the old age pension. He will have gained security. As the machine takes the place of man it will give him shorter hours, increased pay and an earlier retiring age." " There may be individualists who do not want to be levelled by machine-made conditions?"

" There is no such thing as an individualist. We are all affected by the conditions into which we are born. •People go to school and to church, and they are influenced by what they see and hear. You have come into this room, and we are talking here, and that produces some effect on both of us. Given similar conditions, people will be similar. Of course, they will not be exactly the same," and more by his smile than by his words he assented to the differences in personality. "Still you are looking to the machine as a leveller? "

" We are not going to level men down, but to lift them up." And then he went on to talk about the farm he had come from and the poverty of his own origins. He had just had a letter from Ids niece. She had been visiting his birthplace mid described its poverty. There were only a few old sheep in the corner of one paddock, not a bird or a rabbit to be SOPn —poverty in its worst form. "Poverty."' 'He said each syllabic like a word.

Mr Savage was born at Benalla, in Victoria.

From the poor farm, when the nmrttook possession, he had gone through al! sorts of experiences, lie said. He had worked on one of the Macartney estates at North Yanko, where today there ia an agricultural college. He had wandered about. Where he used to hunt the kangaroo there is now the city of Griffith. When he was there in 1926 it had a population of 14.000. Now it is nearly a city. (The map shows this place in Queensland, south of Dalryuiple and east of Wongalee in the region of the High Gifinite Range.)

He had been a miner and knew how miners, more than any other men, were capable of standing together. They could rise to great heights at great sacri fiee. Thov never forgot their friends.

As he talked his face warmed with compassion, and one understood why people trusted the level blue eves. Not till leaving did one remember the large table with Hie pink squares of blotting paper, where men who have assumed dictatorial powers may be sitting at this moment.