ON TOUR.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1126, 13 May 1911, Page 5

ON TOUR.

— 4 THE TRIUMPHAL TV, OGRESS OF A MINISTER. (By Tcleiraph.-Spccial Correspondents V 1 New Plymouth, May 10. ■ ' The Hon. E. M'Kcnzie, Minister for Public Works, has just completed a rcmarliablc. tour throughout Taranaki, _ and has left behind him a people won- ' during at his bliint outspokenness as a, •politician, his marvellous powers'as an ■after:dinner raconteur, his supreme assurance, and . his almost ferocious energy, which (as a local paper gravely states) has knocked up two of the ihon. gentleman's private secretaries, while a third qhows signs of considerable "woar. and tear. "How can you expect a railway," he said to deputations, which waited upon him regarding communication with.Opunake, "when you return. Opposition members, and the Opposition is always protesting against borrowing?" •.This appeal, which almost implies that political opinions aro regarded as a. commercial commodity for sale like ■tea and sugar, has aroused a good deal of;- disgust throughout -the. province. ;'■> Elthitni. the'.Minister'• related the very'old-time story about the boy who ' rushed .'into < the newspaper office with / the "news that his mother was, dead, . and,-..0n being informed that the funeral ■■.notice would bo so much per inch, re- '■' marked that ■he was afraid that he " coiild not afford the money, as his •' toother measured sft. 7in. In order, pres'umably, to givo the story an appearance of sober veracity, the Minister shanged the venue to Dargaville, with himself in the title rolo of tho newspaperl man meeting the boy in the Street. The Minister's statement that he:had been taken for a newspaper man was received by the Eltham people with it. gasp, and, before they had recovered, . the ■ speaker had gone into flights of watory. in which he predicted that, as his Government had been in for twenty years, they would be in for another Vrcenty years, as "nothing could shift them." Thero is some haziness as to whether tho prophecy was explained fully at Eltham or in other places, but thero is no doubt whatever about the accuracy of the statement. The tour finished up at Whangam.omona, where thero was the "most successful banquet ever held," and a large mirribor of the Minister's admirers in-sisted-on calling him "Roddy," while they,swore to him'undying friendship, some, "fine speeches" were made, and, EO'the story runs, the beer was finally brought in in -ewera. or. as they wern styled, Vwash jugs." It was a crand night, and, on the next day, the Minister departed in a blaze of triumph for Ongarue, en route to Wellington, which place he should reach on Saturday.