"TAXING- HIS COAT OFF"

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 115, 11 November 1935, Page 10

"TAXING- HIS COAT OFF"

' SIR A. NGATA AND THE

GOVERNMENT

An. enthusiastic meeting of Maori voters of the Turanga district was held at Poho-o-Rawiri on Friday evening, the hall there being crowded to capacity when Sir Apirana Ngata, Nationalist Government candidate for the Eastern Maori electorate, took the platform to give, an address on the political situation, reports the "Poverty Bay Herald."

. Among the audience there was a considerable degree of interest in the i relations between Sir Apirana and the National Government, and one speaker observed that in view of the outcome of the Native Commission's report Native sentiment would have been behind Sir Apirana had he chosen to take the field as an Independent candidate. This suggestion was disposed of by Sir Apirana with characteristic vigour, when he pointed out that he had been pleased to be relieved of Cabinet rank, as he could do more for the Maori people as their outright representative than when Native interests were involved with responsibility for others. '

"I can take my coat off now, and get work done which I could not do as a Minister," he added, amidst laughter and applause, proceeding to remark that Maori people would understand that to fight successfully it was necessary to combine forces. A man without a pa to which he could resort in times of strife could not hope to fight at all,- and in the political battlefield •the Independent could effect nothing.