MR. MASSEY’S VISIT.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 November 1922, Page 4

MR. MASSEY’S VISIT.

It is a good many years since the Prime Minister visited Taranaki. He can offer, of course, good reasons for his apparent neglect of this, one of the most flourishing and interesting parts of the Dominion, inasmuch that the years of war fully engaged his attention and the work and problems arising from the conflagration have since made heavy calls on his time. That he will be given a cordial welcome by the public goes without saying. People of all shades of political opinion recognise that as the first citizen of the State he had to bear during the years of crisis a very great responsibility, and one which he discharged with considerable ability and a total disregard of his own personal interests. It was a great emergency, one that happily occurs but seldom in the history of a country, and worthily he rose to it and met it. No previous statesman the country has produced in its comparatively short history ever had to meet a situation, or series of situations, fraught with such difficulty and danger, and the conspicuous part he then played, all who have a regard for the well-being and future of New Zealand will remember with gratitude. That gratitude will be felt if it is not openly expressed on the occasion of Mr. Massey’s visit to Taranaki this next day of two. He is, of course, on a political mission, and comes to put before electors his programme and endeavor to justify it. At such a time as this, that is to be expected. Whether the public agree with his views and his programme or not, he will, for the reasons we have given above, be assured of a genuinely warm welcome. In honoring the Prime Minister, electors, after all, are but honoring themselves.