TRIBUTES PAID

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 30 June 1939, Page 9

TRIBUTES PAID

THE LATE HONS. W. W. SNODGRASS AND D. T. FLEMING COUNCIL ADJOURNS (From Our Own Parliamentary Iteporterl I WELLINGTON, 29th June, i Reference to the work done in I local body and national government in New Zealand by two Legislative Councillors who died since the Council was last in session was made in the Legislative Council to-day, and motions of sympathy with their relatives were carried. The Leader of the Council (the Hon. Mark Fagan) first referred to the death of the Hon. W. W. Snodgrass, M.B.E. (Nelson) who was a member of -the Council from 1921 for seventeen and a half years. Mr Snodgrass had been a member of the merchant firm of R. Snodgrass and Sons in Nelson, Mr Fagan said, a member of the Nelson City Council, Mayor of Nelson, a member of the Nelson Harbour Board, Patriotic Society, and War Funds Council. He was also president of the Nelson Chamber of Commerce and a trustee of his church. While in the > Council he had been chairman of the Joint House Committee. The Hon. W. H. Mclntyre (Nelson) supported the Leader’s remarks and said that Mr Snodgrass had had many friends in Nelson and in the Council. The Hon. D. Wilson (Wellington) said he had known Mr Snodgrass in Nelson and in the Council and had always had a high regard for him. The late Hon. D. T. Fleming was born in Scotland and came to New Zealand with his parents as a child, Mr Fagan J said. He had been educated on the I Taieri Plains and at the Otago Boys’ : High School and entered the career of journalism, being managing editor of the “Clutha Leader” for twelve years, and also part owner of the ‘‘Bruce Herald.” He retired from journalism in 1912 to take up farming. He had been Mayor of Balclutha and chairman of the Balclutha River Board and Otago Education Board, as well as a member of other local bodies. He entered the Legislative Council in 1918 and was a member for fourteen years. “Next November,” said Mr Fagan, “this Dominion will be celebrating its one-hundredth anniversary and if our late colleague had lived he would have been amongst the foremost pioneers. In a few months tributes will be paid to our early settlers and none will deserve tribute more than our late colleague.”

Mr Fleming had spent three-quarters of a century in Otago ancl had seen it grow from a comparatively small settlement to one of the foremost and most progressive provinces in the Dominion. As a journalist, farmer and member of local bodies he had done a great deal to help in that development. He had been a quiet and unassuming but useful member of the Council.

In seconding the motion moved by the Leader of the Council, the Hon. F. Waite (Otago) mentioned that the Fleming River in the Catlins district of Otago had been named after Mr Fleming. Mr Fleming had always taken particular interest in education and defence and had given long service to both. The Council adjourned at 3.47 p.m .as a mark of respect to the memory of the two late councillors.