HON. W. F. MASSEY

Hokitika Guardian, 15 April 1925, Page 3

HON. W. F. MASSEY

PUBLIC ANXIETY. WELLINGTON, April 13. ■ I he later reports concerning the condition of the Prime .Minister have awakened •Wellington to a realisation of the fact that a very grave calamity is threatening the Dominion. .Mr .Massey, by his indomitable courage, his perennial optimism, his consistent, patriotism and his abounding good-will towards humanity at large, has won the hearts ol thousands of people who have no sympathy with his political views and no liking for his administration. Tile concern ol these people for his welfare at the present time is one of the finest tributes ever paid to a public man in this country. From the big business man, who has grumbled at the Minister’s expenditure and taxation, down to the little worker, who has denounced bis insistence upon the spirit of the law, good wishes speed to the sufferer as frequently and as fervently as they do from his personal friends and his political associates. The now universal fear for the present has stilled speculation for the future. The Government is being carried on somehow by some-body, hut no one seems to have the heart to ask how or by whom. The truth is that ever since the conclusion of the war, whatever the constituencies may have said about the matter, the maii-in-the-street and all his acquaintances have regarded .Mr Massey as the beginning and the end of the Government, and thev .now are too much concerned with the present to speculate as to what may happen next. Their case is the case of the whole community.