UNUSUAL TALK IN HOUSE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 19860, 25 July 1934, Page 8

UNUSUAL TALK IN HOUSE

RESORT TO VIOLENCE SUGGESTED MEMBER CALLED TO ORDER (From Our Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, July 24. A suggestion that persons who were opposed to an extension of the life of P rliament might be justified in using violence towards legislators was made in the House of Representatives to-day by Mr J. A. Lee (Lab., Grey Lynn), who was checked by Mr Speaker, who ordered the withdrawal of the words. Such expressions coming from a member of Parliament, Mr Speaker said, were calculated to do a great deal of harm in the country. Mr Lee said he could not understand members of the House treating the Bill lightly. “I have memory of a war for democracy,” he said. “I am going to say this, that if it was legitimate for a man to put a bullet into the head of an individual opposed to democracy then it is legitimate when the original mandate of this Parliament has expired, for a wronged citizen to put a bullet into the head of a legislator.” Mr Speaker: Order. I think the honourable gentleman should withdraw. Mr Lee: But I believe it. Mr Speaker: Order! Order! I am afraid that is the kind of talk that is calculated to do a great deal of harm in the country. I do not think it is within the bounds of Parliamentary debate that a member should make a statement like that. It simply amounts to making a threat. I must ask you to withdraw the statement. Mr Lee: I will withdraw if that is your instruction. Mr Speaker: The hon. gentleman has received my instruction. Mr Lee: I withdraw the statement, but am I not entitled to suggest that at some stage the Government may provoke the violent resistance of the people? I believe that. If I can’t suggest it, then I don’t want to carry on in this House. Mr Speaker: I think the hon. member had better leave it at that. Mr Lee: May I say that the people of England cut off the head of their king, and I do not think the head of a Commoner is entitled to any greater consideration than the people of England, in defence of their constitutional privileges, accorded to the head of their king. Mr H. T. Armstrong (Lab., Christchurch East): They would be just as good without their heads. (Laughter.) A Statement Denied. Mr Lee said that quite frankly his position was that if at some time usurpation such as had occurred in Germany were to occur in New Zealan he would rather register his opposition before he was behind a barbed wire fence than after. That seemed to him to be commonsense. The Prime Minister, in discussing the question in the country, had said that Government was despotism, and that only two things could determine the length of the tenure of a Government’s office; one was its commonsense and the other was that if it exceeded the bounds of commonsense in defiance of the-people, the people would resist the Government. The Prime Minister had laid it down in a statement that at the stage at which a Government did something that was beyond the dictates of commonsense, then the violence of the people would determine the tenure of office of the Government. The Prime Minister: I said nothing of the sort. Mr Lee: The Prime Minister said that definitely. We will read his statement shortly. Mr W. E. Parry (Lab., Auckland Suburbs) : He said it was the only alternative. Mr Lee went on to say that the first suggestion of an extension of the life of Parliament came from the lips of the late Sir Alfred Bankhart when the formation of the Coalition Government was being discussed. Members would know that it was quite common talk at that moment that part of the bargain entered into was that the life of Parliament should be extended. “If the Government intends seriously to extend the life of Parliament,” said Mr Lee, “we will see before this session is out a Sedition Bill before the House, ■ because the present law will not enable the Government to usurp the power of government as it is trying to usurp it to-day. It will become almost a seditious act to criticise the Government. and such a Bill will inevitably follow. The Government knows that if citizens criticise the Government because of the extension of the life of Parliament in the terms I have used in this House, twelve good men and true would not find a citizen guilty for the reason that the temper of the country is hostile to this act of usurpation of the privileges of the people.”