Mr Massey.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17882, 1 October 1923, Page 8

Mr Massey.

The Prime Minister haa arrived, in London, rested, and rejuvenated, and enthusiastic' That, after the heartiness of his reception, is the fact that will most interest his admirers at thiß Even his two world-records—-two days better than tho best'time over the Pacific, and an hour bettor than tho best over the Atlantic—are noted by him with such boyish delight that wo can all be quite suro of his recovery from the weariness which oppressed him, and worried his friends, when he boarded the Tahiti at Wellington. And with our Prim© Minister in Loudon in really good form we can be quite sure also of tho influence he will exert at* the Conferences. It is too soon yet to consider his references to tho economio and constitutional issues which he .touches guardedly in interviews with representatives of, the London Press. Mr Massey is anything but a doctrinaire, and if in his , remarks in one place ho seems to desire a kind of fixed outward ruling in matters that can be fixed nowhere but in tho spirit of thoso dealing with them, we may be quite sure that ho either said loss or meant less than the cable seems to attribute to him. Perhaps, too, we should make some allowance for condensation and false em-1 phasis in the report of nis remarks about Washington. But the Prime Minister is a shrewd judge of men aa men, and if the new President of America impressed him s> favourably, ib is a safe enough inferenoe that Mr l Coolidge is the kind of man whom New Zealanders in general would admire. Though the "prosperity and happiness "of the sister Democnvcy of New Zealand" are not in his keeping, and only remotely within the range of his influence,-it is distinctly important that he should bo so well informed about us, and should have come so soon into personal contact with our 'first citizen. Mr Massey went abroad with a free hand, to do whatever it seemed good to him to do for Now Zealand in London. It is no breach of that commission, but a very happy enlargement of it, that he found time on the way to advance our cause in Washington.