HE WORKS, BUT HE DOES NOT WORRY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXI, Issue LXII, 18 June 1912, Page 5

HE WORKS, BUT HE DOES NOT WORRY.

A SENSIBLE MINISTER.

[By Telegraph—Special to Stab.] WELLINGTON, June 17. "You ask me about the prospects of the session," said Mr Mac Donald, the Minister for Public Works, in an interview which I had with him to-day. Well (he continued) 1 am not worrying about it at all. Members of the Labor and Liberal Party combined when the IWinistry was formed, and agreed to support the party. If they have changed their views since tnen, tnat concerns themselves, and will, oi course, concern their constituents who returned them as supporters of the Liberal Party."

Ministerial life is not so easy and attractive that you would continue on any terms? I suggested to the Minister, and he proir^tly concurred. "I feel (he said) that my position as Minister of Public Works and Native Minister is a heavy task for anybody, but these particular matters have engaged my attention for the last thirty years, so they do not come with exceptional difficulty to me. But the tremendous amount 'of correspondence, and the large amount of work on hand, necessitates the Minister's whole time being given to carrying out the duties to the satisfaction of the country, so that if he has, in addition, to be worried about the political support from his own party, then, of course — and I say this unhesitatingly—the game is not worth the candle. So far as I am concerned, 1 have heard no complaints from any member of the Liberal Party or any statement as to their intentions when the House meets, so that I am able to carry on my work without any worry."