A PREMIER AT PAHIATUA. THE PREMIER AT PAHIATUA.

Otago Witness, Issue 2362, 1 June 1899, Page 19

A PREMIER AT PAHIATUA. THE PREMIER AT PAHIATUA.

A LIVELY MEETING.

WELLINGTON, May 24.

A gentleman who was present at the Premier's Pahiatua meeting informs me that it was one of the liveliest gatherings of the kind he has ever attended. Mr Seddon was subjected to a considerable amount of banter* and at one period of the proceedings had to appeal to the chairman for protection. At last the local policeman went forward as if to eject the ringleaders of xhe uproar, and Mr Seddon then got up and scored a tactical success by appealing to the limb of the law on behalf of the objectionists. Mr Seddon's laboured explanation of the marine scandal was received with repeated outbursts of derisive laughter and cries of "Too thin," etc., and he was repatedly asked to pass on to something else. It was towards the termination of the meeting, however, that the position became acute. Pahiatua audiences are unused to harangues occupying three hours and a-half, as this one did. The old-age pensions was about the last item on the list. There were a few

j minutes of silence while Mr Seddon described for the hundredth, time, with tht usual accompaniments of tears and tremor, the bad old days when aged couples were separated for ever into the Old Men's and Old Women's Homes respectively. Then a dejected bushman at the back of the hall wailed out plaintively, "For God's sake, Dick, give us the benediction." After that chaos ! " 'A leading ""Seddonite- got "up to move a motion but he had forgotten his cve — he moved for thanks only. " Who is that man?" shouted the Premier to the chairman. Under cover of the uproar he then added, loud enough to be heard by all in the immediate vicinity, "Do you think I have come up here to get a vote of thanks? Make it thanks and confidence." At this stage the Premier was palpably annoyed, much to the gratification of his tormentor? at the back of the hall, and they took full advantage of the opportunity of rubbing it in. The Chairman hesitatingly put it tc the meeting that a vote of thanks and confidence had been moved, but a loud chorus of "Noes" came up from all pa^ts of the hall. "Put it, man ; put ' it," shouted the Premier, and the Chairman put it and declared it carried, amidst a storm of protests; and Mr Seddo-:, getting a few more words in moving a vote of thanks to the chairman, said (no doubt with a view to publication)" that T< this was' one of the greatest, victories it had ever bee" his lot to witness."