PARLIAMENTARY TYPES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 3683, 19 November 1912, Page 6

PARLIAMENTARY TYPES.

A MINISTERIAL CARICATURIST,

DR. POMARE AT PUKEKOHE.

THE ROLE OF THE HUMORIST.

[BY TELEGRAPH—SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT] AUCKLAND, Nov. 18. At the dinner tendered to Mr Massey by the . Franklin electors on Saturday ‘night, the role of humorist was assumed by Hon. Dr. Pom-are, the Native representative in the Cabinet. Some of his remarks were, perhaps, more satirical than flattering to the country’s Parliament, but- they appealed to the company as -pleasantries worthy of encouragement. In the course of his response to tho toast of "Parliament” the Minister said that the legislature had appealed to him as something sacred until he entered its portals and became disillusioned in a very short space of time. After his party’s providential licking at the commencement of tlie present Parliament by tjie "inverted howl” one member of the temporarily victorious section got up and thanked the -waverers who had brow" about the defeat of the No-confidence motion and for having saved tho country from the arms of the vultures, while another showered thanks upon the "inverted bowl’* because "tho wings of the octopus had been clipped”—(laughter). A third called the Reform Party «. lot of “pot-liousc orators” and a'fourth referred to them as a -peripatetic band of kangaroos—(laughter). "But I noticed that they took most of the hops,” added tlie Minister, amidst a further burst of merriment. Tliere were, he said, various types of Parliamentarians. One was the .sleeping kind, of which ho believed himself to be one —at least bis room mate thought so, because lie had asked him to snore in English. Next there was in Parliament the parroty type, who continually sang the same song; also the giraffe-necked with the skin of a rhinoceros, the head of a sand fly and the venomous tongue of an ophidian—(laughter). Then there was the stamp to which his chief belonged —the man who would come up smiling after every rebuff like the Jew who relished being hit between tlie eyes because lie saw diamonds —(laughter). Mr Massev bad been seeing oolite al diamonds for years and now they were materialising. He, for one. bad no regards at having chosen him as his leader.