"NO BETRAYAL"

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 116, 12 November 1938, Page 10

"NO BETRAYAL"

PEOPLE'S TRUST

RUMOURS SCOUTED

MR. SAVAGE'S STAND

i "I have not the faintest notion of resigning," said the Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage) in an interview today, when he was informed jof a persistent rumour that he contemplated relinquishing his position conseI quent upon alleged differences of opinion in the ranks of the Parliamentary Labour Party. "In the first place, after having gone through the election campaign and met the people in their tens of thousands and had their good will expressed in such measure from time to time in various parts of the country, well, to me it would look like a betrayal of the>people to think of any such thing as resigning," said Mr. Savage. "I have told them on many occasions that there was no power on earth outside of the people themselves could shift me from the Prime Ministership. Well, that stands today. I told them from time to time that I knew the people I was working with, men and women in and out of Parliament, and I was not making any promise I could not fulfil. I hope to be able to go to the end of my days in the service of the people. LIP SERVICE TO DEMOCRACY. "For people to be spreading rumours today to the effect that I am contemplating resignation is beyond my comprehension. No doubt it is propaganda, i I know there is a certain amount of propaganda still going on in financial circles against the Government, but we will live through it all and New Zealand will come out of it with flying colours. "A good deal is said about democracy these days, and I would like in passing to say to those who give lip service to democratic principles that actions speak louder than words, and unless democracy can be made, as President Roosevelt has so aptly put it, a living thing expressed in the every-day> lives and actions of the people, it is not worth much. I hope everyone in industry, and outside it, so far as that goes, will take some notice of that. Democracy means more than simply lip service. It means not spreading rumours about the Prime Minister or any other Minister from time to time, but seeing to it that the ideals to which I think most New Zealanders subscribe are given effect to."

Mr. Savage said that he had gone before the electors and told them without any qualification that he was Prime Minister of New Zealand representing a great political party and pledging himself to the people. He was not going to let them down nor would he be a party to their betrayal in any shape or form.