POLITICAL LEADERS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 72, 26 March 1931, Page 12

POLITICAL LEADERS

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—l cannot see why Mr. P. D. Tait should twist and misquote my statements as he has done in his letter appearing on 24th March. I will take only one example and leave the rest alone. I certainly did not say that it was "necessary for the Prime Ministers he mentions to be born outside New Zealand. That hardly makes sense. I said that all our leading men, at one time, necessarily were born outside the country, and surely it is obvious to any intelligence that in the early days ot the colony it must have been so. When Sir Robert Stout became Premier m 1834 there were comparatively few native-born men old enough to take a leading part in public afFairs, and when the first Parliament mot in 1854 there were none at all. My original contention was that in the present crisis I consider that those born and brought up here are the most likely to have the rear interests of tin's country nnd its people in their minds. You kindly gave me space in which to express this opinion—an opinion to which I still adhere I gather from Mr.. Tait's remarks that' he thinks otherwise. I am content to let the matter rest there—we have both had bur say.—l am, etc.,

NATIVE-BORN.