NO RESENTMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 305, 26 December 1928, Page 3

NO RESENTMENT.

A DEFEATED MINISTER.

CROWDED YEARS IN OFFICE

A brief reference to his defeat at the general election—one of the greatest surprises of the campaign—was made by Mr. F. J. Rolleston, the late Minister of Justice and defence and Attorney-Gen-eral, at an enthusiastic gathering held in his honour at Timaru last week.

Mr. Rolleston said he had crowded more work into the last three years than at any other period of his life, and at one period he was at the head of ten Departments of State. The verdict at the election was a considerable one, but he considered that his holiday, enforced certainly, would be beneficial in many ways, and he bore no resentment to the electors. To those who complained that he had been away in Wellington too much he would like to point out that there were twelve Ministers, and consequently twelve electorates would be partly disfranchised. On behalf of his colleagues, he said that in working for the Dominion they ..were also working for their own electorates. If he had achieved any success he felt that it must be reflected in the town. If his defeat had been due to the fact that he had formed definite opinions, there were some defeats which were better than victories. If a man had to subordinate his own convictions in order to retain votes, then he would get out of public life altogether. He did not think that the electors were not aware of that. Honesty of conviction was worth something.

Mr. Rolleston said he had made no enemies during his career, and had always received kind consideration from people of all shades of political opinion. If ever public life felt irksome, he had been spurred on to fresh efforts by the thought that he was not doing half so much as the soldiers who went to the front. He concluded with the observation that the highest service a man could give was to his fellow men, and that he regarded as being of the greatest value.