MINISTERS AT THE FRONT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16583, 5 July 1917, Page 4

MINISTERS AT THE FRONT.

[BT TELEGRAPH—SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.] WELLINGTON, Wednesday. "We had no exciting experiences or adventures in France," said Mr. Massey in his speech yesterday. "The artillery was blazing away at the time, but nothing even came near us." (Laughter.) A Member: Oh, they don't carry 100 miles. (Laughter.) Mr. Masiey added that he was sure that members of Parliament would have been sorry if anything had happened to them. (Hear, hear.) At one of the places' they had stopped at, a shell had fallen some time before, and he had brought the! shell out with him as a" memento.

Referring to the same matter, Sir Joseph Ward said it had been suggested that they had never been near tho 'front on their visit to France. "Why," he said, " we were only 800 yards from the front fighting-line, and if our predecessors there of the Parliamentary party were any nearer than that

Mr. Leo: Sixty yards. (Laughter.) Sir Joseph Ward: " Then they must have been at a place where there were no Germans at all. We were at a place where they had smashed a building tho day before.'' He went on to say that they had been in a dug-out whore a man had his legs blown off the day before. He mentioned those and other matters to show that they had been actually at the front, and not to show that they had been in points of danger. They had gone, everywhere the officers had taken them. He went on to pay a tribute to the great British Amy organisation. The army was the best-fed, best-equipped, and the best-cared-for army in the world.