Mr Savage Welcomed In Dunedin

Northern Advocate, 29 September 1938, Page 9

Mr Savage Welcomed In Dunedin

[Per Frew Association. Copyright.] DUNEDIN. This Day.

Something in the nature of a triumphal progress from the railway station to his hotel was enjoyed -by tiie Prime Minister. Mr Savage, when he arrived at Dunedin by express yesterday afternoon, accompanied by the Minister of Mines, the Hon, P. C. Webb. nAs the train drew in there was a crowd of several hundreds of people on the station, and Mr Savage and Mr Webb alighted from the Ministerial car to the accompaniment of loud cheers and the strains of “Bluebells cf Scotland,” played by the Forbury school band, which, in its kilted uniforms, gave the Ministers a characteristic welcome to the Scottish city of New Zealand.

Mr Savage and Mr Webb were the guests of honour at a Labour Party social, presided over by the chairman of the Otago Labour Representation Committee, Mr P. G. Connelly. The Ministers w ere given an enthusiastic reception.

“World Moving All Right.”

“Toe world is moving all right,” Mr Savage said, “but we have still a long way to go before we reach sanity. All you have to do is to read the current cable news to see how slender a hold of civilisation we have. It looks as though wc are ready to go back to the jungle at any time. I remember speaking at the Fountain in Dunedin in 1911, and a great deal of water has flowed under the bridge between that time and the time when I, as Labour Prime Minister of New Zealand, represented this Dominion at the Coronation of our King and Queen.

“When I was at the Coronation no one talked about war, and the representatives of various nations seemed to be impressing one another. But how shallow it must have been. I said then that unless we were at peace in the industrial world we could never be properly at peace, and it seems to me that if 'we could get representatives of the various nations round the table wc could see what was wrong. If we had started then to get the nations together and talk to them quite frankly, we could have seen what they thought was wrong, and tried to straighten it out.

Round Tabic Conference Wanted

“I do not think anyone wants trouble,” Mr Savage said* “but there seems to be something fundamentally wrong. It seems to me that we will never solve it except by discussion round the table. Nevertheless, we have made some progress - in New Zealand, because when I used to speak with other members of the Labour movement in various parts of New Zealand, I never thought I Avould be visiting Dunedin as Prime Minister.” “Wherever, we go we find that oldtime battlers in the Labour movement are thrilled with the work that the first Labour Government in New Zealand has accomplished,” said Mr Webb, in replying tp the toast in his honour. “Nevertheless, we would sooner be defeated and retain the fellowship of our friends in the movement than sacrifice that goodwill and remain in office,” Real Prosperity. Mr Webb said the "business men of New Zealand had never enjoyed real prosperity until the bulk of the people had money to buy the things they needed. The extra -1 £33,000,000 in the national wages bill had done great things for the business,community, as well as bringing about the annihilation cf the Unemployment problem as it was known three, years ago. This year the Government had managed to organise work for every man who could do a job,' and that had never been done in this country before.