MR. WHITESIDE TALKS.

Thames Star, Volume LIX, Issue 16625, 22 October 1925, Page 5

MR. WHITESIDE TALKS.

“BIG BUGS HUG LITTLE BUGS.”

GOVT. BLAMED FOR DIVORCE,

ASKS HIMSELF A QUESTION. An evening’s mild amusement was afforded the 70 or 80 citizens who made their way to the Central Hall last night to hear Mr A. J. Whiteside explain why they should vote for him at the general elections. He described himself as an “Independent Old Liberal,” and spent most of the evening blaming the Reform Government for ■all sorts of imaginary ills and ailments which, he said, the country was suffering from, and became so engrossed in this diverting pastime, that he entirely forgot to outline a policy. Mr Wm. Bongard (Deputy-Mayor) presided, and it was not long before the candidate, with much waving of arms, was well into his stride, with a denunciation of the Reform Government for encouraging profiteering. He described financiers as the “big bugs,” “and when,” he said, "the big bugs hug the l'ttle bugs, that's when the trouble '•eminences.” (The audience enjoyed this.)

Mr Whiteside then went on to Compare the present with the past, apparently with a view of showing that the old Liberals were splendid people, but owing to the distorted nature of his remarks, and a curious trick of leaving a sentence half-finished, and cheerfully moving on to some other topic, quite outside the realm of politics, hi's address was extremely difficult (to follow. In fact, the only way of describing his speech is to say that he talked solidly for an hour and a half, and said nothing. “A Little Word In.” He finished off a description of some stony-hearted politicians of days gone by, by saying: “They got you that way that they would leave you penniless. They could leave a man penniless the minute before his wife died, then they put a little word in, and another little word .in. Who settled your strikes in days like that?” he cried, though what-' this had to do with the man’s wife dying was not explained. He didn’t side altogether with Labour. The Liberal Party was .the only party out to irespect all parties. Tihen he would like to say something about the Thames Star. The Star asked if the .other candidates could do as much for the electorate as Mr Rhodes could. “Can they?” asked Mr Whiteside, nodding wisely to the audience. ‘'Can they?” Nobody said they couldn’t, so, after Mr Whiteside had thought this was “pretty hot stuff,” he asked the audience to tell him “who, of his opponents, had been an engineer, and who had been a land valuator?” Mr Rhodes didn’t know anything about flax, and were they going to “put a man in who didn’t know anything about flax?” Now, he (the speaker) was a practical man on flax, and could show the chairman a photo of a firm he had started in Wairoa, which commenced with four men, and two assistants went on afterwards, which showed it was run on the right lines. Mr Whiteside suited the action 'to the word, and . the chairman , politely looked at a photograph of the firm, along with others produced at regular intervals.

A Little Mixed. The newspapers had •no right to give pictures of the farmers “with ropes round their necks and things round their trousers the navvies call bowyangs.” The candidate here got himself very much mixed with the cost of flour, Bible in schools, and the Kings of Israel, who were crowned over the Stone of Scone, and something about shale being the stuff benzine was made out of. Why shouldn’t they have cheap bread in New Zealand? Wouldn’t it be a grand thing if they could give the children of Thames bread at 3d a loaf cheaper. They wanted to raise their heads and think. (Presumably the candidate was referring to his audience.) In the old days “the Liberals were men of honour, now they say, “How well he has managed, and all that. . . . Now, if you want to see what a ( ' dirty thing it is, just go into politics; I know what it is.”

With both arms still waving at intervals, and to a running accompaniment of the more or less subdued mirth from the audience, Mr Whiteside proceeded to give his opinion of Agricultural Banks. He wanted to know “what sort of thing these 'ere banks is if or. They would only be a blow to these ’ere dairy companies.” * After going into a few details, the candidate riveted home this plank of his platform by saying that Agricultural Banks were “no good to Thames, anyway, and it was these impracticable people who come in and upset the electors.” Too Much Water.

Still going strong, the candidate cheerfully “jumped” from one subject to another with astonishing facility. He had “Mr Thomas Wilford” bringing out benzine to New Zealand one minute, and wanting to “fuse” the people the next. A .traitor in the camp of Jesus Christ was compared to a traitor in the Liberal camp. The Reform Party had opposed every good law, voted against the pensions 28 times, and were to blame for all the divorce in the land. When the muffled mirth of the audience had again subsided, ithe speaker this time with both arms swinging at intervals, had something ,to say about mining. The deepest mine round here was only down 500 feet. (Uproar from miners at the back of the ball.) Why, dn South Africa, there was a mine down 4000 .feet. “In the old days, they pumped that much water out of one side that they had to let it run down the other side.” (Loud laughter.) When the Liberals were in power, “they had their stampers going day and night, and the people woke up when they stopped. You’d wake up if they started now, wouldn’t you?” he asked.

As soon as they made Mr Coates Prime Minister, "up went the price of coal Cd. a sack. Now, the policy was ‘Vote for Coates.’ They’d had enougher them sorter ‘coats.’ ” Here Mr Whiteside lost himself in a description of a lagoon, a coalfield and a swamp at Whangamarino, where, when the road was made, and a canal formed, the fishermen would not come back with empty hands, but with a Ipad of'coal, . , ,/t ; (Continued at bottom of next column.)

Afforestation was the next subject dealt with, but just as the speaker was working up to a sort of finale, he lost the place in his notes, and glanced off on to the land laws. Anybody who took on a farm under .the Government land laws, he intimated, “was just like a man who is going to be married—he’s all anticipation. It’s not the work that troubles him, it’s the prospects that lies in front of hipi.” This was too much for bis listeners, who had not recovered their composure when the address concluded. A call for questions went unanswered, but Mr Whiteside was not troubled. “Well, look!” he said, “I’ll ask meself a question. That’s the way! If no one asks any, I’ll ask meself cne about flax.”

Here Mr Whiteside explained that the Government once offered a substantial bonus for a machine to do something that would be very good for the flax industry. He invented a machine, tried it out, but it had to be re-made. Then, just as everything was going alright, the Government withdrew the bonus, “gave everyone a trip round, and made a mess of the whole thing.” There were no further “questions,” and, on a long silence following the chairman’s intimation that he would take a resolution, .the meeting was declared closed.