THE PRIME MINISTER’S VISIT

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20667, 4 March 1937, Page 9

THE PRIME MINISTER’S VISIT

To the Editor or “ The Timaru Herald ” Sir, —Some who heard the “tumultuous and musical honours” accorded the Prime Ministei- last Friday evening must wonder at the freedom of the press. It is necessary to be courteous, and no doubt many of your readers were pleased by your appeal to thenvanity, and by your inky regard ior Mr Savage’s qualities as a man, but as many have read so often in your leaders, and will read again of the futility and heaviness of the visitor's efforts as legislator, one realises the inadequacy of language to denote ths real nature of this courtesy.

Throughout the country, wherever the Ministers have toured, the respective newspapers have recorded the visits in terms almost identical with your own. Well might Professor Shelley struggle with the problem of speech, for as yet it appears a thing to be ignored. On Friday evening a member of the spiritual ministry declared that because Mr Savage had become Prime Minister, an audience of six hundred social punters could believe the Prime Minister to be “the expression of the power which makes for righteousness"; that Mr Savage had restored the speaker’s lost faith in man and Providence (q.v.) stating that he had groped in darkness and confusion until Mr Savage had appeared as a rising sun. If the speaker had been lost and confused, but is now by the radiance of the object he eulogised, enlightened and purposeful, he is not sufficiently so to see that he must have plunged some of his hearers into his own former sad state. They must have been as much moved by learning that their Prime Minister was so impossibly virtuous, as by the knowledge that the speaker’s professional vows and teachings, once broken and repudiated, were now patched and workable through the influence of another entity than that by which they were originally inspired. A verbatim report of that would have given your readers an interesting picture of a junior member of the Government. One wonders what the dark-eyed little man thought of it all, although he too on opportunity was courteous, saying he. envied his fellow his fluency. As an appeal to the emotions Mr Savage’s speech was a good effort, and most of those who heard him then must retain a picture of an almost inexhaustable reservoir of human kindness. The majority looked to him to give them something; to do their thinking for them, and like a wise man he did the latter, and therefore they applauded their own thoughts. But they will want him to keep giving and they must have been comforted by his easy acceptance of juvenile autograph hunters. Mr Armstrong was the most human and naturally pleasant figure of the evening. Not so much for what he said, nor how he said it, but rather for what he strove not to say in the way he would like to say it. Althpugh he seemed to have memorised his speech, and had delivered it in many places, he seemed bubbling with political fervours, indignation, and a very youthful delight in what he had done. One could feel the Minister for Labour. One was conscious of an unseen audience of learned editors against a nebulous background called vested interests, and one felt that the Minister would like to slap the former for being victims of the latter. Had one paper reported Mr Armstrong’s repudiation of the allegation that he had supported lawlessness, one feels that he would have been completely happy. With one exception the speakers and audience presented a clear exposure. The former, respectively nervous, simply earnest, stereotyped, extravagant, popular and personal, in that order, and the latter, confusedly determined to be enthusiastic, denoted their eternal nature by their clamour at every hint of a gift. Mr Savage did not reveal himself so much, but appeared to try to be what he has been presented as being, an unstinting giver. As he has been compelled to listen to wordy homage given as to a greater than a demigod he must realise that all such stuff makes more difficult his already almost hopeless task, and one wonders at his composure. He wishes for the co-operation of the people. Co-operation, as understood by his audiences means readiness to absorb all they are given, and hence the stupidity of his friends and brethren encouraging receivers to believe him greater than he can be. If Mr Savage is only partly the idealist he does appear, he may some day be comforted by the realisation that he was dragging two thousands of millions of peopl .—I am, etc., HYPERCRITIC. Timaru, March 1.