Some Recent Bulls in the Commons.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXVI, Issue I, 5 January 1901, Page 32

Some Recent Bulls in the Commons.

From the London “ Telegraph.”

To Mr Flavin the Commons have been indebted for several delightfully comical outbursts. He is a man of quick temper, but there is amiability in his anger, for it is obvious that he is angry with himself for being angry with those who are moved to laughter by the quaintness of his expressions. It was he who said, “It is all right for you to send Irishmen to the front to be killed in your wars and then to come back to spend the remainder of their lives in an Irish workhouse.” From him also came the assurance that “as brave a heart beats beneath the tunic of an Irish Fusilier as beneath the kilt of a Gordon Highlander.” It was one of his colleagues who rose and announced, “I am now going to repeat what I was prevented saying.” The use Of a wrong word by Mr Flavin once gave a peculiar significance, to his eulogy of the Boers’ bravery, for. according to him, there were to be found among those who tok>k the field “the beardless boy of sixteen and the grey haired burglar of sixty.”

But it is not the Nationalists who alone perpetrate a bull, for this week Sir E. Ashmead-Bartlett spoke Of certain schemes advocated by honourable gentlemen behind him. who he was sorry to see were not in their places. Although scarcely a. bull there was quiet irony in Sir Wilfred Lawson’s reference to a naval engagement which was about to commence between the Chinese and Japanese, in which a junk was seen Conveying the Chinese commander to a place of safety. Another honourable member, who holds views of his own as to vaccination, urged the President of the Local Government Board to issue a return of the number of children still unborn who were unvaccinated; and it was only the other day that Mr McNeill moved that the Lords’ amendments to a Bill “be now considered this day three months.” E. Robertsbn was held to have committed a bull when he declared that the extravagance of army officers should be stamped out with a stern hand.