PRIME MINISTER.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18550, 27 November 1925, Page 8

PRIME MINISTER.

GLOWING TRIBUTES. (SPECIAL TO "tmc rsess.") AUCKLAND, November 20. Two striking' tributes to tho Prime Minister were paid at a banquet given iu his honour at D.irgaville. In Lis absence owing to a chill, the lion. A. D. McLeod responded to the toast of "The Hon. J. G. Ccatcs." He said he considered the Prime Minister had clone the right thing in taking tho precaution of going to bed. The people of Kaipara knew more about the boyhood, youth, and.young manhood of Mr Coates than he did, but during the past few years as a Minister, and now as Prime Minister, Mr Coates was probably better known to the speaker than to anyono present. Behind all hia jocularity there was a very deep seriousness in tho frame of Gordon Coates that would certainly mako him a very great man in this country. The Hon. V. H. Reed, M.L.C.. said he had never been so optimistic.of the future as he was to-day, and his optimism was based on what he knew of the man at the head of the nation's affairs. Mr Coates had not aspired to the position ho now held. When the Premiership came his way, Mr Coates asked to be left alone to carry on the work he had in hand. Ho told the speaker he thought ho would be more useful to carry out his own portfolios than accept tha Premiership. Personally, the speaker thought Mr Coates was wrong. He would do greater good to tho country as Prime Minister than rn any other capacity. When his career was ended it would bo said with one accord that he was the greatest Prime Minister New Zealand ever had. (Loud applause.)