PARLIAMENTARY WIT

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3826, 28 October 1936, Page 2

PARLIAMENTARY WIT

GEMS FROM HANSARD. Comparatively few witty sayings are enshrined in Hansard. Gladstone when asked if he could recall any witty things he had heard in the House of Commons during his long Parliamentary career, said that the best thing he had ever heard was the reply made by Lord John Russell to Sir Francis Burdett, a former Radical who had crossed the floor and become an extreme Tory. In the course of a speech in the House Burdett declared that there was nothing more odious than the cant of patriotism. Lord John Russell replied that “the cant of patriotism was no doubt very odious, but there Was one thing even more odious, and that was the recant of patriotism!” This does not seem to be a very brilliant specimen of wit, but doubtless its effectiveness in silencing a political renegade appealed' to Gladstone. Mr Winston Churchill was the victim of one of the best things said in the House of Commons in recent years. A member in criticising Mr Churchill said that his swollen head was doubtless the result of an attack of beri-beri, a disease which is common in Asiatic countries. Mr Churchill endeavoured to correct his critic by informing him that beriberi caused the feet to swell, not the head. “It’s all the same,” said his critic. “What I mean is your are too big for your boots.” During an all-night sitting of the House of Commons in the days of the Home Rule debates, an Irish member who had been patronising the bar lost patience with the honourable member opposite, who was addressing the House, and exclaimed, “You’re a damn fool!” He was ordered to withdraw the offensive remark by the Chairman of Committees, but he tried to explain that th a words were a quotation. “Whether the remark of the honourable member can be explained as a quotation or a potation, it is equally inadmissiblev” said the chairman, “and I musit ask himi to mind his p’s and q’s.” Good things are even more rare in the House of Lords, but Lord Ellenborough is credited with saying of a noble lord who yawned while addressing the House, ‘That fellow does show symptoms of taste—but this is encroaching on our province."