PARLIAMENT

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 317, 5 July 1912, Page 5

PARLIAMENT

THURSDAY, JULY 4, 1912. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. A BREACH OF PRIVILEGE. B/ Telegraph—Press Association. Wellington, Last Night. The House met at 2.30, when the Speaker announced the continuation of the debate on the Address-in-Reply. Mr. McAllum rose and said he desired to move that a breach of privilege had been committed. He had received a letter which had been forwarded to a member of the House. He moved that, in the opinion of this House, the publication of the letter of March 25 from Wro. Sinclair to Wm. Carr is a breach of privilege of the House, inasmuch as it contained a libel on a member of the House.

Mr. Massey asked if the letter had been published. If not, it was not a breach of privilege. The Speaker said that there had been sufficient publication for a breach of privilege. Mr. Allen held that the matter was not one of urgency. It should come up in the ordinary way. Later, Mr. Hanan said that the member for Wairau had been said to have been guilty of corruption. ]f so he could be held up to ridicule and contempt by the whole House. The dignity of Parliament should be upheld, he said, at any cost. Mr. Frascr thought that the question was whether the matter was of sufficient importance to warrant the interruption of a want-of-eonfidence debate. The Speaker ruled that the matter was one of urgency, and could hj? taken at once, Mr. McAllum said that he was not going to treat the matter from a party standpoint. He would say that no member of the House was responsible ''or the letter, nor was. the member who gave him the letter a member of the Opposition. The Speaker asked for a seconder of Mr. McAllum's motion. Mr. Massey rose and seconded the motion. He admitted that a breach of privilege had been committed. The course which should be followed seemed to him to be clear. The matter should be referred to the Privileges Committee. This was done.

THE LETTER IX DISPUTE. "Wellington, Last Xight. The letter which constituted the breach of privilege was from Mr. Sinclair, of Blenheim, to Wm. Carr, and traversed the judgment of the election court, alleging that petitioners were clearly entitled to succeed in the Waits u ejection. A. case of perjury was alleged by the .writer of the letter against Mr. Richard McCallum, Mr. Archibald McCallum, Mr. George Sydney Kerr (secretary of the Xo-Liccnse League), Mr. Edward Stone Parker. Mr. Wm. Henry Macey. Mr. Frank Morrison, and Mr. E. H. Best. The writer suggests that a petition be presented to Parliament signed bv the petitioners, attaching to the petition a copy of the evidence, on the ground that the petitioners have had to pay costs which they would not have had to pay if the judgment had been in accordance with the evidence. The petition, the writer says, could embody a prayer that Parliament will be pleased to refer a decision of the matter to the Privy Council.