WELLINGTONIA.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIII, Issue XV, 13 October 1894, Page 343

WELLINGTONIA.

CHIT-CHAT FROM THE EMPIRE CITY. (BY OUR WELLINGTON SENTINEL ) THE feature of a not very exciting week has certainlybeen the Musical Festival, and the feature of the

Musical Festival has been the really splendid baritone voice of Mr Gee. I need not tell Aucklanders who Mr Gee is, but I can assure them his performances here during the last few days have surprised and delighted even his best friends and warmest admirers. Mr Saunders, the Melbourne tenor, has a sweet, light, skilfullymanaged voice, and has rapidly made himself a favourite here, but the hero of the Festival has undoubtedly been Mr Gee. Lord Glasgow’s name will also be remembered in connection with the Festival, but for a somewhat different reason. His Excellency has many estimable and amiable qualities, but his strong point is certainly not oratory. I don’t know that there is much reason why it should be, or that the representative of Her Majesty should not be well able to fill his post without possessing any mastery of the arts of rhetoric. Perhaps on the whole, in a self-governing colony, the gift of silence is an accomplishment by no means without value to a Governor. He is never likely to have fault found with him for what he does not say. On the other hand, if eloquent, he labours under the constant risk of being tempted to perform Sir Boyle Roche’s feat of opening his mouth in order to put his foot into it. Lord Glasgow at any rate is singularly unlikely to fall a victim to this temptation. No doubt he could fight for the Queen as bravely as becomes a British seaman, but he certainly cannot talk for her. I fancy he looks upon the task of addressing a public audience with unfeigned horror. On Monday night he had good naturedly consented to open the Musical Festival by saying a few words to the audience from the stage of the Opera House. The audience was large, and His Excellency was nervous. Over and over again be stuck dead, after getting out a sentence or two. Luckily the audience was as good-humoured as it was large, and the ladies and gentlemen present did their best to fill in the time by salvoes of benevolent applause. Finally, Lord Glasgow observed with good-humoured desperation : * I belong to a profession that never gives in,’ drew his notes from his breast pocket, donned his spectacles, and doggedly read what he had meant to say. The audience laughed heartily, but rather with His Excellency than at him. He had their sympathy in his unfeigned nervousness, and in his frank and unpretending admission of it.

Nervousness when addressing a public audience is a strange disease, and at times attacks men in a most inexplicable fashion. I once knew an experienced and really eloquent speaker, who had in his time filled high public positions, so paralyzed by this strange sort of stage-fright that, to the amazement of his audience, he was unable to get through half-a-dozen simple sentences. He quietly apologized to his hearers and sat down, but the result on that occasion was highly comic. An enthusiastic and not very fluent friend of his had to make the next speech on the list. This gentleman, wisely distrusting his own powers of extempore speech, had learned a short address off by heart, which he proceeded to deliver with all the strength of very powerful lungs. In his second or third sentence he recited a neatly-worded tribute to the * eloquent and exhaustive address of my hon. friend who has just preceded me.’ You can imagine the effect upon the rather bewildered audience.

I also remember an occasion on which the gentleman chosen to move the Address in reply, which opens each Session of the House of Representatives, was at the last moment robbed of his voice by a sudden and severe cold. Mottled and overcoated he appeared in his place, and in the hoarsest of half audible whispers apologised for his inability, and handed in the MSS of an elaborate speech to be entombed in Hansard. All eyes were then turned upon the seconder of the Address. That gentleman, who had a highly respectable share of humour, was equal to the occasion, which certainly had its comic side. Rising slowly he said in his most solemn and rolling tones :—* Mr Speaker, after the able and eloquent speech, which my Hon. friend has not delivered, any further remarks on my part would be so tedious and needless that I need say nothing at all.’

The subject of nervousness on the part of public speakers reminds one that one of the present members of the House of Representatives fainted dead away in his first attempt to address a New Zealand public meeting as candidate. However, he has quite survived that little mishap, now makes quite as many speeches as the average of his fellows—rather more so in fact—and does not appear by any means to sutler from any overwhelming dread of his audience.

Talking about the Wellington Opera House reminds me that that abominable drop-scene plastered all over with garish advertisements daubed in coarse paint, which used to nauseate every spectator possessed of a grain of good taste, has at last disappeared, never I trust to be seen again. How the town could tolerate it so long has always puzzled me. I wonder a society of playgoers did not band themselves together to boycott every tradesman, whose name and wares were advertised upon it.

This session of the House of Representatives will be notable, if for nothing else, for the number of the divisions. No less than four times this year have the ayes and noes exactly balanced each other, and thus given the Chairman the conspicuous task of deciding the question. I don’t think I ever saw more than one tie division in the session before, though old politicians tell me that Sir Edward Stafford’s Ministry was once saved by the Speakei’s casting vote, and on the strength of that rather slender majority, stuck to office for the remainder of the session.

What may be called the domestic affairs of Parliament House have been in evidence to an unusual extent this session, and have caused many searchings of heart and violent differences of opinion. As you know Bellamy’s had the narrowest possible shave of being prohibited at the very beginning of the session. Its continuance since has been a sore point with the teetotal M.H.R.’s, who look upon its bar traffic very much as an orthodox Hebrew of old must have eyed the images of Baal and Ashtaroth set up under his nose by a heretical Ahab or an idolatrous Jezebel. Just now the Puritan element in the House is especially wrath with the Premier for having dared to show an intention to perpetuate the abomination of alcohol. Mr Seddon, who is a member of the House Committee, has induced that body to order the usual stock of wine and spirits tor next session, whereas the tea party had fully determined that there should, if possible, be no next session for poor old Bellamy’s. They know, of course, that if wine and spirits are once ordered there will be a strong plea put in to give the unregenerate M.H.R’s. the chance of drinking them next year, rather than sell them to outside dealers at a loss. As a matter of fact, Bellamy’s, whatever it may have been in ancient days, is certainly not now a scene of riotous conviviality. It is really nothing more than a large dining room with a small tea room attached, and the amount of liquor consumed there diminishes steadily with every fresh parliament. Unfortunately, the builders who fitted it up provided an eyesore for many people besides Prohibitionists by putting a huge bar close by the entrance door of the dining-room. There is not the least need of this clumsy and unpleasant, looking thing, which gives Ballamy’s the air of being a public house instead of being what it really is, a diningroom. The result is that visitors who see this bar, and notice, perhaps, one or two M.H.R.S standing and talking at it, carry away exaggerated notions of the amount of drinking which goes on there, and tell stories to their friends outside, which pass into wild exaggerations as they travel from month to mouth.

But though the Premier and the House Committee won’t cut off the supplies from Bellamy’s, they are restricting the giving of tea parties. It is odd that in this the first

Parliament elected by the ladies, tea parties should to some extent be put under the ban ; but it is mournfully true. Members are in the habit of asking their wives and lady friends to tea in one of the numerous committee rooms upstairs which help to make up that great and labyrinthine rabbit warren Parliament House. These little social gatherings sometimes take place in the afternoon, but more often in the evening, especially during the half hourin which the House adjourns for supper. They are very pleasant, and entirely innocent and harmless. However, some hard-hearted and unbending M. H. R. or another has lately been annoyed by invasions of rooms to which he considers that be has a preemptive right, or which should be sacred from the intruding feet of woman. Henceforth, therefore, tea parties are only to be held in certain designated rooms, the owners of which may now be expected to find themselves amazingly popular, and their quarters at an unexampled premium.