POLITICAL PRECEDENCE.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 449, 6 March 1909, Page 5

POLITICAL PRECEDENCE.

TEE AFFRONT TO MR. J. B. HINE. AND THE OTHER SIDE'S VERSION, (at TELEaiiAm.— special cobuespondent.) New Plymouth, March 5. Mr. Josoph M'Cluggage, chairman of the. committee which arranged the Hon. A. W.' Hogg's tour from Stratford, writes to the "Daily Nows" as fellows:—"ln your issuoof tliis morning appears a paragraph entitled' 'Precedence and Politics,' referring to the Ministerial visit to Whangamomona. ■ Thoro appears to bo some misunderstanding by Mr. Hino and his supporters. In the first place tho banquet was a political ono given by friende and supporters of Mr. Synics, and tho oxnenses woro paid by them alone. Not a single penny was subscribed by any of Mr. Hine's friends or wipporters. In fact, I think that if Mr. Hino, or his friends, asked to invito six press reporters into Whangamomona at their expense, besido other representative men, there would havo been no Minister at Whangamomona. "Then again the Hon Mr. Hogg accepted ■ho invitation from Whangamomona settlers and friends of the party and not from tho local bodies; so I fail to sco where Sfr. Hino comes in by threatening to bring tho thing up at tho next meeting of tho Stratford County Council. "Tho arrangement by tho committee was that Mr. Symcs, being a special guest, was to sit by tho Minister on the trip from Stratford to Whangamomona, but, when that gentleman heard that Mr. Marchant was going as far as Douglas on county matters, ho very courteously said that Mr. Merchant was to havo his seat by tho Minister.^ "I very politely told Mr. Hino in tho County Hotel on tho morning before- leaving that ho was very foolish to go to the Whangamomona banquet, as it was a political one, and that his party did not invito any Government supporters to the Opposition banquets recently hold at Hawora, However, ho replied that he was going, and ho wont, making his own arrangements and pa'yiug his own fare, and his manner all through was that of an overgrown, spoilt schoolboy. If any of our party had done what Mr. Hino did on the trip out—uamoly, pass tho Minister and his friends on a dusty road when tho wind was blowing and enveloped them in dust for a minute- or two, it would havo been put down as gross ignoranco. But, in Mr. Hine's case, his friends simply say that ho was undiplomatic. "If Mr. Hino does net show more twt and pnticnco during tho next throe years (ban ho has dono during tho last few days, he will bo of very littlo use to his constituents or to tho district which ho represents."