MEMBER AND MINISTER.

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 110, 5 April 1930, Page 10

MEMBER AND MINISTER.

MR W. L. MARTIN REBUKED. The New Zealand Worker, the official' organ of the Labour Party, is At a loss to understand the speech recently delivered by Mr W. L. Martin, Labour M.P., at a banquet in Hamilton to the Minister of Public Works, Hon. E. A. Ransom. “The Press Association report of. Mr. Martin’s speech will be read by members of the Labour movement with mixed feelings,” says the current issue of The Worker. “At a banquet one is expected to be felicitous, not to say jocular, but if this report, is correct, Mr Martin would appear to have eulogised the Minister in terms of admiration which many in the Labour movement will repudiate without hesitation. Felicity need not have carried Mr Martin this far. . . “It is possible, of course, that the Press report does not do justice to< Mr Martin’s actual remarks or to the spirit in which ho delivered them; it may be that the sentences sent by the Pres 3 Association were separated from their context, so that a quite erroneous impression of his speech has been conveyed. We hope for Mr Martin’s sake that this is so. In any case, it is difficult to believe, in view of the wide resentment felt ihrouf.hout the inlustnal Labour Movement against Mr Ransom’s administration of the Public Works Department, that any member of the Parliamentary Labour Party would go out of his way to pay him compliments. “Otie of Mr Martin’s statements suggests that his speech was couched in a vein of humour. Mr Martin said that he would be glad to give the Minister a very hearty welcome to the Labour Partv Seeing that the day after the 1928 elections Mr Ransom proposed . a United-Reform fusion Mr Martin’s inJi+ntion must strike knowledgablo SET- diverti,®.,Still,. even j.,ting can be overdone.