4

I.—B

into the gallery to report, perhaps, a speech delivered by the Colonial Treasurer at a phenomenal rate of speed, averaging 211-f§ words per minute. Those who know anything about parliamentary reporting can realise what a physical and mental strain work of this nature involves. As regards the question of employing outside assistance, the system is a decidedly bad one for Hansard work, and should only be resorted to upon occasions of great pressure, when both Houses are debating, and particularly towards the close of a session. One reporter taking his turns in the gallery is of greater assistance to the staff than three or four irresponsible amanuenses. . Question 12. Is Mr. Barron a satisfactory Chief, so far as you are concerned?—l respectfully submit that this is a most unfair question to put to members of the staff. It is making the matter a personal instead of what it should be—a purely public one. Its tendency, too, is to divert the subject into a channel altogether foreign to the real issue involved in this inquiry. Is it not quite obvious that if any member of the staff were outspoken enough to declare that Mr. Barron was not a satisfactory Chief that member would, as a natural consequence, incur that gentleman's displeasure? However, so far as lam concerned, I have no hesitation in stating that I cannot regard as satisfactory a Chief Reporter who will withdraw from his share of the work and place it upon the other members of the staff; who will, in 1892, when the work was less in degree, press upon the Government the necessity of appointing an additional reporter; who will, when the Government have given that assistance, monopolize it all to himself by withdrawing from the gallery; who will, in 1895, when the work has become incontestably heavier than it was in 1892, make answer to our representations that he sees no necessity for the appointment of an additional reporter, in direct contradiction with his representations to the Government three years previously ; and who will practically tell the men who are doing the work of reporting the proceedings of Parliament that they are not the best judges of the duration of " turns" which will be a relief to them, and will at the same time insure greater accuracy in the reporting of honourable members' speeches; whilst he himself has had positively no reportorial experience of the time-limit system and the increased arduousness of the task which it imposes, to say nothing of the additional work imposed upon them by his own abstention from taking notes in the gallery. •Question 13. How should future appointments to Hansard be made?—As a rule, any future vacancies in the Hansard staff should be filled up by the selection of the best available talent from the newspaper Press of the colony. Newspaper experience is a great essential to the production of a first-class parliamentary reporter. In a word, the literary faculty must be a necessary qualification. While giving my evidence last Monday, a member of the Committee'made reference to the appointment of Ministers' private secretaries to Hansard ; and, in saying what I do upon the subject of filling up future vacancies, my observations must not be misconstrued into a condemnation of what was done a year or two ago in selecting two Private Secretaries to fill Hansard vacancies, or as a reflection upon the gentlemen who at that time received this promotion. Nothing is more foreign to my mind, because I can confidently affirm that both these gentlemen have acquitted themselves remarkably well since they became members of the Hansard staff. lam also conscious of the fact that Mr. Frank Hyde, who is now Private Secretary to the Colonial Treasurer, has had considerable newspaper experience, both in the Old Country and in New Zealand; and I consider him to be in all respects fully competent to have a Hansard appointment conferred upon him. For anything I know to the contrary, there may be other Private Secretaries who have also had newspaper experience, and who may be sufficiently expert shorthand writers to fit them as note-takers in the gallery. Therefore it would be unjust to these gentlemen if I were to say that, as a hard-and-fast rule, the staff should be exclusively recruited from the ranks of the newspaper Press of New Zealand; but to anybody of ordinary intelligence it must be evident that men who have had newspaper experience are best adapted for the work of parliamentary reporting. Question 14. Do you know of anything likely to improve the reporting in regard to the position in which the staff is placed in the House ? —I can best answer this question by at once stating that the accommodation for the official reporting of the proceedings of Parliament is of the most primitive description. In fact, the representatives of the Press have better facilities for doing their work at any ordinary Road Board meeting in the colony than the official reporters have for recording the proceedings of the highest tribunal in the land. I would suggest that, with the view of insuring greater accuracy in Hansard reporting, the staff should have a place set apart for them immediately in front of the Speaker's chair, so as to command a full view of the House and be in closer proximity to Ministers and the leaders on the other side. This is the plan adopted in the Corps Legislatif in Paris, and in the German Reichstag. In the New Zealand House of Representatives there would be no difficulty in providing this improved accommodation ; it would only necessitate the higher elevation of Mr. Speaker's chair. Question 15. Is there any necessity for a Chief Reporter, and, if so, what special qualities are necessary to fit a man for the position ?—Of course there is a necessity for a Chief Reporter, just as there is a necessity for a ganger over a body of navvies, a foreman in a carpenter's shop or over any other body of artizans, a chief clerk in the counting-house of a mercantile establishment, or an official head in any department of the State; and, as to qualifications, the Chief Reporter of the Hansard staff should be professionally equal to any of the members of the staff under his control. In conclusion, I have only to say that it is very much to be regretted a shorthand reporter was not present at the meetings of the Committee to take down the evidence given by the members of the staff, so that members of the Committee, of the House, and of the Government, could grasp the whole position, and see clearly for themselves the causes which have engendered a sense of injustice and complaint in regard to the unsatisfactory manner in which the Hansard Department is at present conducted. I have, &c, The Chairman and Members of the Reporting Debates Committee. J. Grattan Grey.