PRIME MINISTER ELECT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22743, 2 December 1935, Page 10

PRIME MINISTER ELECT

MR SAVAGE’S CAREER SINCERITY AND INTEGRITY IN PARLIAMENT SINCE 1919 Few New Zealand Prime Ministers of the past have entered office with a greater asset of public goodwill on personal grounds than will be held by the leader of the Labour Party, Mr M. J. Savage, when he takes the reins of government. An Australian by birth, but a New Zealander by 28 years’ ’ adoption, Mr Savage has none of the- easy optimism and irresponsibility with which popular belief endows the typical “Aussie.” In temperament (says the Auckland Herald) he so far conforms to the accepted New Zealand pattern that he has been able to win the almost instinctive respect and liking even of those to whom his political creed is anathema.

In him the Labour Party has by good fortune a leader far better fitted than any other among its parliamentary membership to make its programme acceptable to a public which has never before had a Government bearing a class label. A lifelong student of social and political problems, he is far from being a doctrinaire Socialist or a believer in the automatic efficacy of plans and theories. His ready sympathy, friendliness and moderation in speech, both on and off the platform, and his obvious sincerity have enabled him to keep in close touch with the thoughts, hopes and feelings of Ne# Zealanders in every stratum of society. Born at Benalla, Victoria, 63 years ago, Mr Savage began life With few advantages, and in youth and early manhood he followed several occupations, most of them arduous enough.” “ I think there are few jobs that I have not had a shot at,” lie once said when asked about his career. He has worked in a general store, in a mine, on a farm; he has dug canals and cut flax; he has been what he describes as “rouseabout” in a brewery; he has done seci'etarial work for a trade union; and for the past 10 years he has sat in Parliament as the representative of the same constituency, Auckland West. At the age of about 20 the great Melbourne bank crash drove him out of his job in the country store at Benalla, and he went to New South Wales, ■where he worked on one of the sheep stations owned by Sir Samuel M'Caughey, a pioneer’of Australian irrigation. After some years on the land he became an alluvial gold miner near Rutherglen, Victoria. There he was appointed local secretary of the Political Labour, now the Australian Workers’ Union. When the miners began a co-operative movement he was made organiser and first manager of their general store and bakery. One of Mr Savage’s fellow-miners at Rutherglen was Mr P. C. Webb, who also was destined for a place in New Zealand labour politics. Under Mr Webb’s persuasion, Mr Savage decided to try his fortune in the Dominion, Arriving in 1907, he obtained work in a flaxmill at Palmerston North. Some time later he was attracted to Auckland by a movement for starting a co-opera-tive grocery business. The venture did not come to anything, but Auckland has been his home ever since.

The Labour movement made use of his services as a trade union secretary, and while so occupied ho contested Auckland Central in 1911 against the sitting Liberal member, Mr A. E. Glover, and two other candidates. He was defeated by about 2200 'votes and in the same election his friend, Mr Webb, was also unsuccessful in an attempt to win the Grey seat from the Speaker of the House, Sir Arthur Guinness.

In' 1914 he again failed to unseat Mr Glover, but five years later he was successful in Auckland West against two exceptionally strong candidates, Mr A. ,T. Entrican and Mr C. F. Bennett. The division of strength returned him with a majority of less than 400 votes over Mr Bennett —a margin which he has increased at nearly every subsequent poll, until Auckland West is now regarded as virtually a Labour freehold. In the same year Mr Savage was cLeted to the Auckland City Council and the Auckland Hospital Board, on both of which he sat for four years, until his parliamentary work impelled him to resign. In 1927 he was again a candidate for the Hospital Board, remaining a member until the present year.

On his entry into Parliament Mr Savage formed one of a group of eight Labour members under the leadership of Mr H. E. Holland, a fellow-Australian who had come to New Zealand four years later than he. Soon his levelheadedness and all-round ability brought him to the position of deputy loader. In debate he proved one of the party’s most useful members, and he seldom failed to hold a good measure of attention in the House, even when speaking to the rather inferior briefs which party discipline often imposes upon Labour parliamentarians.

He took his full share in the many “ stonewalls ” which Labour put up against measures to which it objected. It is worthy of note that he has caused few or no “ scenes ” and has never shared the liking shown by several of his colleagues for framing private members’ Bills to swell the sessional lists of “ slaughtered innocents.” When Mr Holland died with tragic suddenness in October, 1933, his mantle fell as a matter of course upon Mr Savage, not only as deputy leader, but also as a man whose judgment, wide knowledge and equable temper commanded the loyalty of all his feliowLabour members. He led the Labour forces with credit to himself for the remainder of the Parliament, and directed his party’s election campaign wdth a skill of which its success is sufficient testimony. The addresses which he gave throughout the country and the personal impression which he made undoubtedly contributed much to the result. Mr Savage is not a magnetic orator, but he has an admirable gift of clear, measured and incisive speech, and hjs platform manner w T cil expresses Lis personality. He is a bachelor. Like the

late Mr Holland, he has few avocations, and most of his now rather scanty leisure he devotes to reading and the study or social and political questions.