"SUPER-OPTIMIST"

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 84, 6 October 1938, Page 10

"SUPER-OPTIMIST"

"FbRTY WILL BE MISSING"

MR. SAVAGE'S COMMENT

"I am quite confident that we will have a greater majority in the next Parliament than we had in the last, declared the Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. M. J- Savage) in an interview today on his return from a tour of the South Island. "No one can be a prophet, of course, but at the same time all the evidence points m that direction." , T ,« He described Mr. C. H. Weston, X.C, president of the New Zealand National Party, as a super-optimist in forecasting that National candidates would be returned for 49 seats. "They might have nine," said Mr. Savage, "but the forty will be missing." Mr. Savage went on to say that there was not a seat at present occupied by a National candidate that looked anything like safe. "Start with the Leader of the Opposition and follow them to the other end," he said, "and you will find thJit not one of them has a safe seat. People are more enthusiastic about Labour then they have ever been. The old cry that we were not qualified to do the job is answered by results, and the evidence of all I say is to be found in the way in which the people have acclaimed the Leader of the Government and Government members. everywhere. They are coming to us in greater numbers than ever."

The Prime Minister, referring to his Christchurch meeting in the King Edward Barracks, said that no one had ever seen a meeting in Christchurch that approached it. There was seating accommodation for 4500. All those seats were occupied and there were more people standing than there were seated. "I seemed to be speaking to acres of people," he. said, "and they did not come to throw stones. It was just like addressing a meeting in a drawing-room."

Mr. Savage spoke also of the receptions he received at Dunedin, where people turned out in the rain to greet him, and at Invercargill. "My experience in Invercargill beats anything I ever had," he said, "and I don't think Invercargill has seen anything quite like it. The police had the utmost difficulty in making an opening for me through the crowd."