POLITICAL HYMNAL

Hokitika Guardian, 30 June 1931, Page 8

POLITICAL HYMNAL

AIacDONA LD’S INS PI RAT lON

LONDON, June 19. While a group of Labour mem hers was iniportriiiiing the Prime Minister, Mr MacDonald, to know whether an election was likely over the land tax, Mr .MacDonald countered by producing from bis cigarette ease a scrap ol paper on. -which one of his daughters had written the hurt election figures and the corresponding numbers in “llymncs Ancient and Modern.” They were:—La.,our, 289 members; hymn No. 289, ‘.‘A few more years shall loll;” Conservatives, 2,34, “Weary of earth and laden with my sins”; Liberals, 54, “When shades of night around us close.” Mr .MacDonald smilingly remarked that lie had kept the memo, since the election and had derived much comfort from it.

“Mr MacDonald should watch his daughter more closely,” says a Conservative M.P., Mr P. Hurd (Devizes), referring to the .quotations from hymns. Hymn No. 289, correspond ng to the figures for Labour, which Mr MacDonald said was “A few more years shall roll,” should be “Days and moments quickly flying, blend the living with the dead,”, according to Mr Hurd.

Similarly hymn 254 (Conservatives) should not he “AVoary of earth and laden with my sins,” lint “Sorrow vanquished, Labour ended,” Mr Hurd says. .Moreover, he declares, the election figures, according to Whitaker’s Almanac, were stated wrongly. With tlmir hymnal accompaniments, they should he: Labour, 277, “Thou art gone to the grave, but we shall not deplore thee”; and Conservative, 260 “Oh, make our sad divisions soon to cease.” If Mr MacDonald, as a Presbyterian, prefers his own hymn book, No/ 287 prays for “Freedom from,Satan’s wiles and frownrd heart,” and No-. 260 foreshadows “a glorious morrow when night, siif and sorrow have forever paired.”