TALK OF CUCKOOS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 226, 23 September 1943, Page 6

TALK OF CUCKOOS

MR. ALGIE'S SALLIES

"ROOKERY NOOK MINISTERS"

Some caustic and witty sallies at the expense of his political adversaries brightened the speech of Mr. R. M. Algie (National, Remuera) delivered to a large audience in the Berkeley Theatre, Mission Bay, last evening. At the conclusion a hearty vote of thanks and confidence was carried by acclamation. Mr. F. G. Baskett presided.

From the security of a radio studio, he said, Mr. Clive Drummond, of the Independent People's Group, had asserted that the Remuera Nationalists had replaced one old man with another, an elderly academic theorist. "I feel certain that Mr. Drummond will draw the age benefit at my expense much earlier than I will draw one at his," said Mr. Algie, amid laughter and applause.

"Mr. Semple has described me as a cuckoo .in the nest," he added. "Some people should talk about nests. Mr. Semple was able to talk himself into a very comfortable and safe nest in the last war. There is another book by the author of 'The Cuckoo in the Nest' which seems to fit some Ministers of the Crown most aptly. Its title is 'Rookery Nook.' (Laughter.) Referring to Dr. Finlay, Mr. Algie said they both began the campaign on a high level with no personalities. Unfortunately Dr. Finlay had attempted to give the impression that he was pro-Nasi. Dr. Finlay had only recently emerged from the debating stage of a university. He (Mr. Algie) would blush with shame if some of his early debating speeches could be read to the audience. "I feel certain that in a few years' time when Dr. Finlay is still somebody s private secretary and I am a Minister of the Crown, he will apologise to me and say he didn't mean it, and that he didn't realise that in Remuera personalities get no votes," added Mr. Algie.