THE WORK OF PARLIAMENT.

Inangahua Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1283, 13 August 1883, Page 2

THE WORK OF PARLIAMENT.

(Christchurch Press, July 28.) The state of ferment into which the House got last week ever the Estimates has been followed by a relapse into that condition of inane indifference which has so far marked the proceedings of the present Parliament. All tlie work that has been done since the members went home " with the milk " last Saturday morning need not have occupied more than a single sitting. A great part of each day has 'been taken up by questions about trifling matters, and answers which any clerk in the offices concerned could have given just as easily and satisfactorily as the Ministers. This practice of asking innumerable questions about paltry little details of departmental business is becoming a seriousnuisance. It is perfectly well known, of com se, that the members care nothing about tne answers they receive, because they can get all necessary information by stepping into the Government .Buildings, and asking for it in "the proper quarter. What they want is not information, but publicity.. They labor under an uncomfortable sense of nobodyness. and this ia their way of appearing to be somebody, at least in the eyes of their constituents. They are scarcely equal' to originating a, motion or a Bill, and, -like the newly-elected member, for Bruce, they consider politics " all moonshine." . They are, in short, decidedly out of their element in the H ouse. But still, being there, they feel they ought to do something to remind those who put them there of their existence. They, therefore, cover the first page ,of the Order Paper with questions on every conceivable subject that is likely to interest their constituents and nobody else ; and on the meeting of the House every afternoon they solemnly go through the form of putting, these questions to the Ministers and obtaining, the sterotyped replies, which they knew quite well beforehand. Next morning the people of Mudbridge see in the local thunderer that their member has asked the Minister of Public Works " whether it is the intention of Government to take im mediate steps for repairing the handle ofthe village putnp" at that important centre ; and that the Minister replied that the Government recognised the exceptional urgency of the case, and would give it careful consideration." Then the good people of Mudbridge remark that their member is not such a " duffer" as they thought he was. He evidently is not going to let the Government have it all their own way about the pump ; and if ho is not much of a hand at spouting, he looks well after the affairs of his district Thus the member is glorified, and everything is satisfactor) . This is not an exaggeration or a burlesque. It is a literally accurate description of the manner in ; which a numerous class of our so called politicians contrive to keep themselves on evidence before the electors. Many of them never take any part in the proceedings of the House, except by asking questions and voting on their party's call when the division bell rings. Such members no doubt have their uses, and it is hard to blame them for not cumbering the pages of Hansard as well as the Order Paper ; but there is a medium in all things ; and the number and absurdity of the questions which are put to Ministers now-a-days are altogether excessive.