PREMIER’S HEALTH

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20129, 26 December 1939, Page 4

PREMIER’S HEALTH

STARTLING REPORTS PERSONAL REFUTATION GISBORNE INQUIRIES j Startling reports concerning the health of the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon. M. J. Savage, circulating in Gisborne on Sunday, caused profound concern in many quarters, despite the complete absence of any official news from Wellington which might have been held to support the rumours. During the morning services at St. Mary’s Catholic Church the congregation were asked to remember the Prime Minister in their prayers, ana to intercede for his speedy recovery frbm his illness. Within an hour or two, hundreds of people in Gisborne heard reports that credited the officiating priest with a statement conveying a much more serious inference. It was said, in fact, that the congregation had been told that that the last sacrament had been administered to Mr. Savage, who lay upon the point of death. Circumstantial Versions The reports continued to be circumstantial throughout Christmas Day. and members of the Herald staff were besieged in the streets and in their homes with inquiries for particulars. Some reports said that the Prime Minister had passed away, others that, he had only a few hours to live. An urgent inquirer who waited outside the Herald office last night said that several men had reported to him that an official statement had been made over the air that Mr. Savage had been given exactly 12J hours of life by his medical advisers.

There was only o ne answer available in reply to these questionings, but many people who were told that no official announcement had been made regarding the health of the Prime Minister were still unsatisfied. However, at a later hour in the evening, 'Mr. D. W. Coleman, M.P., laid the stories by a personal communication by telephone to the Prime Minister’s residence in Wellington.

The telephone call was answered by Mr. Savage himself, who refused emphatically the reports of his being seriously ill. He declared that he was as fit as ever, and that there was absolutely no basis for the reports in circulation in this district.