A CONTRAST

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10243, 20 May 1911, Page 5

A CONTRAST

THE KAISER AND MR FISHER CLASSES AND MASSES. (Received Last Night. 10.10 o'clock.) LONDON, May 19. The Ayrshire Miners' Union banquetted the Hon. Andrew Fisher, Prime Minister of the Australian Commonwealth. Mr Keir Hardie, M.P., who presided, said he could not help contrasting the arrival of the aiser and Mr Fisher. One was representing the dominance of class, and the other represented the coming into force of the rule of common people. Mr Fisher, without any adventitious aids of tongue, was a ready speaker, and by his honesty and strong convictions had reached the Prime Ministership. He had done much to raise the human race to a higher plane. . , Mr Fisher, in replying, said that whatever the Labour leaders of Britain had to say about defence, he would ask them not to prescribe for the conditions obtaining in Australia. Mr Fisher said that if he stood by and saw Australia undefended, he would be guilty of a criminal neglect of one of his first duties. The opportunities which existed for Australia and New Zealand were equal to and probably' better than those of their closer Dominions.

After the banquet, a public moetr ■sr was held, at which Mr Keir Hardie declared that what Labour had don? in Australia would deplete Scotland of its best men. But it would be bad for 1 Scotland. He would be no party to n policy'which deluded men to go abroad when they were needed for the rescue of their own country.