RIGID SPEECH LIMIT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20954, 18 August 1931, Page 9

RIGID SPEECH LIMIT.

ONLY FIVE MINUTES ALLOWED AUCKLANDER M GUILLOTINED." [rnosi OUT. OWN cokhespondenx.] LONDON, July 10. Mr. J. H. Barker, of Auckland, left New Zealand a few weeks ago as full of zeal as any man in those enterprising islands, says the Manchester Evening News. He was zealous to tell the grocers of England all about the feats of colonial cows and the fame of New Zealand agriculture. During the long voyage he planned what he would say.

Mr. Barker landed in England. He went to Blackpool as a delegate to>?.tbe Federation of Grocers' Associations. He spoke. But only for five minutes. He protested. A Scottish association, he said, _ had allowed him to speak fpr half an h'our.

The chairman was adamant. Business was business, and the guillotine must operate, as it had never operated since 1789. So Mr. Barker packed into the five minutes six weeks of hard thinking. "It's all the same to me," Air. Barker afterwards said. "I'm enjoying myself so much on my first trip home after 45 years in New Zealand that nothing can cloud my happiness. . . I should have liked to have said something about the coupon system and gift schemes," he added. "Some people say it's advertising. That's wrong. Advertising is an art. Gift schemes are merely artful."