HUMOUR AMONG LABORITES

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXXII, Issue 57, 5 May 1924, Page 8

HUMOUR AMONG LABORITES

A well-known Dunedin Labour man has a keen souse of the humorous however wild liis statements against un.'il he terms fiu* capitalistic systeni may he at times. Ho tells with glee (renoyts the Times) an incident which occurred at tTie mass meeting of railwaymen, held at Ihe Art Gallery Hall on Tuesday, At that meeting there were many liabour Bif.JVs and leaders from other parfs of the dominion. Just beforoThe proceedings commenced, said the particular Labour man who tells the story, a mcnihoi- 0 j the audience with ;i. big mop of Imir claimed the attention of the chairman. lie said that at the present time they had as Prime Minister in England a man who had risen ri'.rht from the ranks-Mr .Ramsey MneDbnald.' He thought a. country where siich a state of govenimen'fc could exist was a country worth living for, and under the circumstances he considered they should open the meeting by singing the National An them. man got up.'' said the humorous person., "even so and so" (mentioning the Labour man who is known from one end of tho dominion to the other for his diatriibes against the existing form op government) "and joined heartily in singing. I said to one North Island Labour M.P. afterwoods that I thought he never sang the National Anthem, and he replied; 'Me! I'll sing anything. They can't side track me that way' ". It is the same humorous person who likes to divert himself at pacifist meetings. The other night he quite spoilt the harmony of an assembly. No one, he said, could argue tor warfare after tviia't lie hiiuseil had seen at the front, but there was such a thing us survival of the fiittest. He went on to tell the meeting what happened to the pacilist morions. The Maoris had come along and eaten them up. Some 250 had escaped to the Chatham Islands, and these, too, would have been eaten had they not been saved by the white man. He further, exploited his argument by referring to the fate which befel pacifist animals. "Looks at the sheep," he said, "could anyone, imagine a more pacific animal H It, however, usually dies a violent and horrible death."