"MY NAME IS PICKLES."

Colonist, Volume LVI, Issue 13420, 18 March 1914, Page 5

"MY NAME IS PICKLES."

Mr. Will Crooks, M.P., when supporting the coming Empire Exhibition in London, said the exhibition was really the marvellous outcome of the wonderful tour made by King George and Queen Mary when Prince and Princess of Wales. At the Guildhall, on his return, His Majesty said: "Wherever we went the people's heart swelled with conscious pride at their co-partnership in this great Empire." That was a marvellous and prophetic utterance, but, not by many a year yet, had the people of the Empire been made to understand how great, large, and important it was.

The extraordinary thing about the Empire was x that its pioneers usually came fro.n very poor stock indeed, although it was good stock. (Laughter.) It was the native wit and the capacity to bear trouble under all circumstances that had made this great Empire of ours respected all the world" over. Whilst he was on the Empire tour, at Mount Barker, in Western Australia, he met a man who said, "You must know me, my name is Pickles." (Laughter.)

Mr. Crooks replied, "I was weaned on them." (Laughter.) "What can I do?" The man .showed him a piece of land he had taken from the Government fifteen years ago. The man had worked on the railway for many years, and, with his wife and children, had lived under canvas. He had cleared that ground, and last year ho took £900 for fruit, of which £450 wa^ clear profit to himself, his wife, and two sons.

CABLE NEWS.

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