MR FRASER AND MR COATES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19440, 28 October 1925, Page 5

MR FRASER AND MR COATES

(To the Editor)

Sir,' —When addressing a meeting in Wanganui on Monday evening, Mr Peter Fraser, one of the leaders of the New Zealand Labour Party, became facetious at the expense of the Prime Minister. He ridiculed the Prime Minister because little anecdotes of his boyhood and manhood days have been published, and he argued, quite rightly, that because Mr Coates could throw a wild steer, drive a bullock team round a difficult corner, or give a cripple boy a ride in his motor car, was no reason why he should be Prime Minister of New Zealand. Mr Fraser’s sense of humour is very shallow and his logic is superficial. Also, he applied it unfairly. The incidents referred, to are characteristic newspaper ‘‘chat” about celebrities. Mr Fraser himself told last night how, in his younger days, he had read the biographies of famous men, for instance, Mr Gladstone, and seen pictures of him as a baby, at three months old, in his first trousers, at Eton, and as he looked when Prime Minister. If: is the fate of all men, when they loom large in the public eye, to have their past referred to. Sir Joseph Ward suffered that way. Before now Mr Holland has had old and unpleasant, history quoted. Some day Mr Fraser may have his biography written up. And then, will he be pleased when a critic says that because be never gripped a wild beast by its horns and overthrew it, because he could never drive a bullock team, because he played only marbles, because he never went to the war and never won distinction —. But ah! It was a singular thing that Mr Fraser said not a word about Mr Coates’ service at the front. He did not dare to throw ridicule on that portion of the Prime Minister’s life, although he disapproved of it as much as he did of other incidents in a virile youth.

Summing up Mr Coates, Mr Fraser said he was a commonplace, ordinary fellow ‘‘just like ourselves” (meaning the Labour members) and the most damaging criticism he could utter (apart from being able to ‘do a Tom Mix tricK) was that he had'belonged to the Reiform Party for thirteen years. Which, if Mr Fraser had not such'a perverted wit, he would have realised was about the biggest compliment he could have paid Mr Coates. As an administrator of the most important portfolios, Mr Coates has been, as everyone knows, 1 a brilliant success. Which of the Labour members could be as good? I am, etc. REFORM. Wanganui, Oct. 27, 1925.