MR. VEITCH’S HARD LUCK

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 147, 24 June 1931, Page 6

MR. VEITCH’S HARD LUCK

'Y’HE Hon. Air Veitch is certainly having particularly hard luck as he draws near to the close of his political career. He is now practically a Minister without portfolio, seeing that the recent Act creates a nexus between the Railway Board and the Minister of Finance. Having been so shelved by his own colleagues, it was perhaps natural for him to have absented himself from the Hauraki by-election contest. The pressure of a large railway vote at Otahuhu did make a condition which almost demanded his presence there, for if Air Veitch could not justify the Government’s railway policy nobody could. But Air Veitch knew the lay of the land too well to venture North, so he preferred the air of the city the most distant from the scene of the contest. MrVeiteh went to Invercargill. His judgment was sound, for the greater the distance the greater the safety. The by-eleetion having passed into history, Air Veitch cautiously ventured to the fair northern province. After the shouting and the tumult had died, surely some measure of peace would prevail. It was a good guess, but, alas, it was wrong. A turbulent demonstration awaited him, and the demonstrators were not, pleased when he could only talk in generalities. He was evidently then not aware of Cabinet’s intentions to reconsider its decision to continue the No. 5 Scheme, and so he could not even play with the idea. Air Veitch thereupon returned to Wanganui, where he learned that the Cabinet had reversed its decision regarding the No. 5 Scheme. What a nice speech lie could have made in Auckland had he been “in the know.” That he was not, and that he was not even in Cabinet when the reversal decision was made, was surely disappointing, and Mr Veitch is entitled to consider himself out of luck.