THE PREMIER'S CHRISTCHURCH MEETING.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1696, 12 March 1913, Page 6

THE PREMIER'S CHRISTCHURCH MEETING.

The Prime Minister showed more courage than judgment in choosing the City of Christchurch as the centre in -which to deliver his policy speech. Christchurch is the stronghold of the anti-military pro-Social-ist element which has ranged itself in apposition to all good citizens who believe that if a country .' is worth living,in it is worth fighting for. It is the home, too, of the noisy Radical section which hates moderation.in any form, and is never so happy as when giving full play to its. vocal powers. • These people naturally would have little sympathy with the head of the Reform Government, and being quite indifferent 'to such trifles as the courtesy due to a visiting Minister, or the desire-of their fellow-citizens to listen to the Prime Minister's speech, or even the good name of their city, they could not be expected to miss the opportunity of displaying their ill-manners and baiting Mn. Massey. Indeed, it has been current gossip in Christchurch for some days past that tho Prime Minister was. likely to be given a "hot time" by this rowdy element who apparently imagine that the more ill-mannered and objectionable their conduct is tha stronger the case they make out for their own political cause. Last evening they appear to have lived up to expectations, so far as misconducting themselves is concerned. Naturally they wero a minority of the large gathering, presided over by the Mayor of the city, but a minority can sometimes make itself extremely objectionable in a crowded hall, and the "RedFlaggers" ■ and their friends did themselves and their city quite as much discredit as they could manage in the time. The effect on the Prime Minister, however, apparently was hardly what they hnd hoped for. Mb. Massey stuck to his task

and, despite the ill-mannered interruptions of a section of his "hosts" —to use the term adopted by the anti-Reform journal at Christchurch —went through with his speech, and, in addition, scored freely off the interjections of his interrupters. Moreover, despite the organised attempt to upset the meeting and turn it against the Government, a motion of thanks and confidence in the Ministry was carried. ,It cannot be said, however, that the report of the specch which is circulated throughout the Dominion this morning gives anything like a connected outline of the Government's policy. Mil. Maskey appears to have coine through liis ordeal extremely well, and the treatment he received is likely to win him both sympathy and support, but the public generally who have to rely on the daily press for their knowledge of Ministerial utterances will not learn much as to his policy pronouncements from the report supplied by tho Press Association. _ We do not blame the Association's Christchurch agent for this, rather do we lay the responsibility at the door of those who induced the Prime Minister to select Christchurch as the place for the delivery of thespecch. Mr. Seddon, it will be recalled by many, whenever he had what he considered to an important policy speech to deliver, almost invariably chose an out-of-the-way place for doing so in order to avoid any risk of interruption which might destj'oy the proper flow and sequence of his utterances. He held, and wisely so, that it was more important to secure that a clear and lucid report of his speech should appear in the whole of the daily press of the Dominion next day and be read by tens of thousands of people, than that he should risk losing such a report for the sake of securing a larger meeting which at the best could, only mean a matter of a few thousands. Mr. Massey might follow his predecessor's example in this respect; or at least he should run no unnecessary risks of interruption when delivering a policy speech meant for the edification of' the people of New Zealand as a whole.