POLITICAL POTTAGE.

Putaruru Press, Volume VI, Issue 243, 28 June 1928, Page 5

POLITICAL POTTAGE.

(By the Gallery Man). No. I. Speaking to Reform supporters at Matamata, the amiable and well-bal-anced Mr. F. F. Hockly, M.P. for the sulphurous electorate, bewailed the fact that the Government is condemned by some farmers and some city business people as well. Serves ’em right. They ought to have known that no man—not even a politician—can serve two masters. Of a truth the Government is on the horns of a dilemma, is between Scylla and Charybdis, or in more homely language, betwixt the devil and the deep blue sea. The cockies want something approaching Free Trade, and the city business fellows object to government in business, especially as the State—and local body concerns—pay no taxes. The position is like that of the soldier who was up to his withers in icy-cold water, but dared not get out because a machine gun barrage was spraying bullets over like water out of a rose. He sat still and kept cool—ever so cool— until the storm blew over, and that’s what the Government will have to do.

Mr. H. Rollett, the man who stuck to the Job of president of the Matamata branch of the Farmers’ union for nearly a score of years because he could never succeed in unloading that thankless position on to anyone else, until they proposed a man who was absent, also made a say-so worthy of—um—“special mention.” He recalled' a straight tip the late Prime Minister, Mr. Massey, gave the farmers during the famous—or infamous—Tauranga by-election campaign. Mr. Massey said that the farmers badly needed to get into their heads that the Government had to legislate for the whole of the people, and not for any one section thereof, not even the farmers, solely. Which reminds me of the nasty sarcastic thing some rude fellow said about the thrifty Scotchman, namely, that he would work all his life on his barren llieland3 and finally save up about £2 to bury himself with. In similar vein one might say that working on the land alone, without the tools the engineer invents and manufactures, the tiller of the soil would be still plodding away with a wooden spade, or a piece of rock lashed to the branch of a tree. We are all in the same beat, and must float or founder together, which fact is not any the Tess a fact because some of us holystone the decks, others tend the engines, and others : do the directing and are adorned with gold braid. We do really live by taking in each other’s washing, even • if some do. only the frills and the flounces, and' others the socks and the shirts.

Seems likely, that we’re in for a dashed good political fight this time, and I’m right down glad of it, and shall be pleased to shout “ Let ’em ’ave it, Bill,” and watch skin and hair flying and the gore flowing —other folks’ gore, of course.