EARLY DAY MEMORIES

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3786, 1 May 1928, Page 1

EARLY DAY MEMORIES

POLITICAL PATRONAGE,

Speaking at Ihuraua on conditions obtaining years ago, the Hon. A. D. McLeod said:—“Those Yvere the days of political patronage. Probably as a heritage from the clans from which I sprang, I have always been a believer in individual effort, and a fighter for independence, and I entered public life vvitli the idea that I Yvould endeavour to leave my district better than . I found it. I remember years ago, before the present party came into power, intervieYving the then Minister of Public Works on behalf of my local body to urge the claims of a number of settlers for the metalling of a certain road.' The reply I received wms to the effect that so long as Yve returned to Parliament the man we Yvere returning Yve Yvould not get much for our roads. My reply was very much to the point. I said: “I have cross* eel unbridged rivers and struggled, through the mud up to the axles since I Yvas a boy, and if the price of Govtrnment assistance is to be political patronage, I shall go on struggling through the mud for the rest of my life. We have rights irrespective of whom we return to Parliament, and if the Almighty had intended me to eraYvl for those rights He Yvould have given me four legs instead of tYVo.”