AMONGST HIS OWN PEOPLE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19444, 2 November 1925, Page 8

AMONGST HIS OWN PEOPLE

REFORM CANDIDATE ON ST. JOHN’S HILL. MB. COULL IN FAVOUR. GAINS CONFIDENCE OF I, AR GE AUDIENCE. The largo and attentive number of electors who attended Mr John Coull’s meeting on St. John’s Hill on Saturday evening, to hear him expound the Reform Party’s policy, was eloquent testimony to the esteem and confidence felt iu the candidate by the people who know him most intimately end come in contact with him regularly. The schoolroom was packed to overflowing, and a politician was never (given a more patient and sympathetic hearing, there not being a single question or interjection during the whole meeting. At the conclusion of his re* marks, which were mainly along similar lines to those of his previous addresses, Mr Coull was accorded a unanimous vote of thanks and confidence, on flic motion of Mr R. E. Cuthbertson. seconded bv Mr Powd-rcll.

Mr Coull premised his remarks by stating that it gave him great pleasure j to be amongst his own people to speak to them on political matters. He did feel that he just wanted to speak to them before he went to the poll. He stood square for the Reform Party, and what he asked of the electors was best in the interests of Wanganui and New Zealand. He had felt proud, during the intervening three years, of the excellent support accorded him at last election on the “hill.’’ "Many of his supporters voted in the city last time, mt he must say that he saw several electors coming up from the city to vote ou the “hili,” and that, he suggested, was all in the game of “put and take.” Railway Safety. I In replying to certain criticism by Mr Veitch in regard to the railways, tho speaker said that, at his Gonville meeting, the Nationalist candidate declared that the margin of safety in permanent ways was not being maintained. In effect the statement implied that it was perhaps not quite safe to travel on the railways. However, an engine-driver of 20 years’ standing, who had listened to Mr Veitch’s comment, had volunteered the information |that the permanent way on the railways ;was being fully maintained, that the ;bridges had been widened and strengthened, and that the locomotives and permanent way on the railways in the Dominion were better than they had ever been. That unsolicited information, considered the speaker, was an effective reply to tho Nationalist candidate’s statement. In addition to this, he pointed out that the Hon. J. G. Coates, as Minister for Railways, had infused a spirit into the service that had not existed twenty or thirty years ago.

The Claim of Reform. | Mr Coull also dealt with the questions of health, education, afforestation, humanitarian legislation, and the i land policy, and in conclusion said that the Reform Party had thirteen years of successful administration behind it to commend it to the electors, while the National Party had only thirteen years of “puddling about” with other parties.