RIVAL TO SEDDON.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17014, 12 April 1923, Page 6

RIVAL TO SEDDON.

♦ MR MASSEY HOPES TO EQUAL RECORD. TWENTY-NINE YEARS IN HOUSE. (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, April 12. Speaking ac Levin yesterday, Mr Massey made a passing reference to the fact that lie hail completed twentynine years of uninterrupted Parlianienty service. “It was twenty-nine years yesterday.” he said, “since I was first elected to Parliament. That-, is an unbroken period. 1 have not been defeated, though- one never knows what may happen in the future. I have seen marvellous surprises at election time, but my Waterloo has not yet come. I don’t know whether I shall wait for it to come—that remains to he seen. “1 am the father of the House at present. There are men in Parliament "'ho were there before me. but their record is not unbroken. Either I am up to Mr Seddon’s record, or very close to it. So far as his office was concerned, lie was thirteen years Prime Minister. l"p to the present I have been Prime Minister for eleven years, or I shall have been-jay. the time the House meets again.” Mr Massey added thnt for his long term in Parliament he had the loyalty of his supporters in Franklin electorate to thank. They had a way of tolling him at election time to devote only one or two nights to (hem. and then to leave to attend to affairs elsewhere. No uian could stand on the quarter dock for so many years as he had clone, and escape liability to err occasionally. He had made mistakes and was ready to acknowledge it but his mistakes hail never been due to intention or neglect.