MEMBER FOR MATAURA

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19325, 28 October 1932, Page 16

MEMBER FOR MATAURA

GLAD HE LEFT SCOTLAND. The member for Mataura. Mr D. McDougall. delivered a characteristi j speech in the House during the debate on the Budget. The member for Grey Lynn (Mr J. A. Lee) had given members some of the history of Scotland on the previous evening, Mr McDougall said, and what he said was very interesting and very corect. Mr Lee had referred to the McLeans and the McLeods— :, i fact, to all of the clans except the McDougalls—(laughter)—and when he w r as sparking on all four plugs Mr McDougall had expected him to sing the words of Prince Charlie. Mr F. Langstone (Labour, Waimarino): “Sing it.” Mr McDougall did so. and later said that if the member for Grey Lynn had given a song he w r olud sing a second one. “I want to tell you something of the slums of Glasgow,” he said, “because I came from there, and I want to say that a boy who grew up there and was able to shun what was evil and select what was good deserves credit.” Members: “Hear! hear!” On the south bank of the Clyde there were hundreds of workmen's cottages. Mr McDougall continued, and the one he had rented w T as owned by a McLean, and the McLeans were just as hard as— Mr Langstone: “The McLeods.” (Laughter.) Mr McDougall: “He was a rackrenter. and I was glad to get away from him. And. like the member for Temuka, I have always praised my Maker morning, noon and night, because I came to New Zealand. I have heard mothers plead with their sons not to leave home, but they knew what Scotland w r as and they went, and to come out here 60 years ago w r as very different from what it is now. We had to travel in a wind-jammer and live on fat pork, and pea soup, and it was that strong it could climb up four flights of stairs.” (Laughter.)

Continuing. Mr McDougall said tha one of his wife's brothers had quar relied with the laird —or factor, a

they called him—and to do that was a heinous crime in Scotland. The po-icj were sent to arrest him, but he got on board a boat at Glasgow and sailed to America, and because they could not get the son they turned his mother out on to the road. “Can you blame any man or woman for wanting to get away from a country like that?” he asked. “I got away, and I’m glad I did. because if I had stopped there I would have been dancing on the end of a rope long ago.” (Laughter.) After quoting from Robert Burns’s poems, Mr McDougall asked: “Where would any working man be with any independence who would shed a tear at leaving a country like that?”