BANQUET TO MR J. STEVENS, M.H.R.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3713, 18 September 1906, Page 3

BANQUET TO MR J. STEVENS, M.H.R.

, AT SHANNON. Mr John Stevens, M.H.R., for Manawatu, was entertained by his constituents last evening at a banquet in the Town Hall. The county chairman (Mr G. N. Stephenson) presided. The Hon. R, McNab, Minister of Lands, Mr F. Lawry M.H.R., Mr John Holmes, Mr B. R. Gardener (Mayor of Levin) were present, Mr A. Seifert proposed the Parliament of New Zealand and the Hon. Mr McNab replied. He said he had been associated with Mr Stevens 1894, and there was no member he would go farther to honour. Speaking of the new Government, Mr McNab said the members of the Ministry were determined that it should never happen again that there should be a man in this State who would put himself into an early grave simply to serve the people of New Zealand. The present Ministry was determined that the load should be equally distributed amongst all the members. The toast of the evening was proposed, by Mr T. Lind, who recounted many of the benefits secured for the electorate by its veteran member. Mr Stevens who was very warmly received, thanked Shannon sincerely for its hospitality and its political support. He expressed the hope that the present Government, which possessed in a striking degree the first essential of integrity, would be the permanent Government of New Zealand, He congratulated the country on having lived down the land laws of the old days, when a man could put down a deposit and receive from the Land Board twenty thousand acres. He recalled the time in the eighties when he and the late Mr Henry Driver, of Dunedin, were the only members of the Waste Lands Committee who stood up for giving Crown tenants the right of purchase. Although a freeholder he was a believer in limitation of area. $ “The district and local industTaS6 ” was proposed by Mr F. W. and responded to by Mr J. VK,ansell, who mentioned that Land and Timber Coiripany had a timber field containing sixty million feet.