ABOUT FLAX, AND OTHER THINGS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 100, 24 October 1925, Page 13

ABOUT FLAX, AND OTHER THINGS

AN ENTERTAINING ADDRESS.

(BI TELEGRAPH.—SPECIAL TO THE POST )

AUCKLAND, This Day.

One of the few entertaining addresses in. the country was that given at Thames by Mr. A. J. Whiteside, who bears the brand of Independent candidate. He described himself as an Independent old Liberal, and spent most of the evening blaming tho Reform Government for all sorts of imaginary ills and ailments, which,, he said, the country was suffering from. He described financiers as "big bugs," and then he said: "The big bugs hug the little bugs. That's when the trouble commences." The audience enjoyed this. ' Owiflg to tho curious trick of leaving a sentence half-finished and cheerfully -moving on to some other topic quite outside the realm of politics the address was extremely difficult to follow. The candidate did not side altogether with Labour. Tho Liberal Party was the only party 'out to respect all parties. Mr. Rhodes did not know anything about flax, and were they going to put a man in ■who didn't know anything about flax. (Laughter.) _ Now, the candidate was a practical man ion flax, and could show the chairman a photograph of a farm ho had started in Wairoa which was run on right lines. Having untied himself from flax ho got himself very much mixod with the cost of flour, Bible in schools, and tho Kings of Israel, and sometimes about shale being the stuff benzine was made of. Still going strong, the candidate had Mr. Wilford bringing out benzine one minute and wanting to fuse people the next.

Mr. Whiteside lost himself in a description of a lagoon, coalfield, and a swamp, where, when the road was made and a canal formed, the fishermen would not come back with empty hands but with a load of coal. Afforestation was the next subject tackled, but just as the speaker was working up to a sort of finale he lost t-ho place in his notes, and glanced off on to the land laws.

The call for questions wont unan severed, bnt Mr. Whitcside was not troubled. "Woll, look," he said "I'll ask myself a question. That's the way, if no one asks any. I'll as k myself one about flax." Hero Mr. Whitcside explained that the Government once offered a substantial bonus for a machine to do something that would be very good for the flax industry, lie invented a inarhinc and tried if, out, but it, had to be remade. Thru jirafc as everything was going along (he Government n-UMrew the k°&U3> gave ovcryono a

trip round, and made a mess, of the whole-thing. With this inglorious ending tho meeting closed.