IN PARLIAMENT 29 YEARS

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 175, 12 April 1923, Page 6

IN PARLIAMENT 29 YEARS

MR. MASSEY’S RECORD .‘The'Prime Minister of New Zealand (the lit. Hon. W. F. Massey) lias completed '29 years of uninterrupted Parliamentary service. His is the longest uftbroken record possessed by any member ->f tho. present ‘ House. Mr. Massey made a passing, reference to his record in a speech he delivered at Levin yesterday. . “It was 29 years yesterday,” he said,. “since I was first elected to Parliament. That is an unbroken period. I have not Keen defeated, though one never knows what may happen .in the future. I have seen marvellous surprises at election time, but mv Waterloo has not yet- come. I don’t know whether I shall wait for it to come. Toat remains to be seen. 1 am the father of the Hquse at present. There are men in Parliament who were there before me, but their record is not unbroken. Either lamup to Mr. Seddon’s record or very close to it. So far as his office was concerned, he was 13 years Prime Minister. Up to the present I have been Prime Minister II years, or I shall have been by the time the House meets again.” Mr. Massey added that for his long term in Parliament he had the loyalty of his supporters in the Franklin electorate to thank. They had a way of telling him at election time to devote only one" or two nights to them, and then’ leave to attend to affairs elsewhere. No man could stand on the quarter deck for so many years as he had done and escape the liability to err occasionally. He had made mistakes, and was ready to acknowledge it; but his mistakes had never been due to intention or neglect.