NOT RESIGNING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 November 1938, Page 5

NOT RESIGNING

PRIME MINISTER DENIES RUMOURS NOT GOING TO LET PEOPLE DOWN (By Telegraph—Press Association.) \ ' ' WELLINGTON, This Day.' Rumours that he contemplated resigning his position because of differerences of opinion said to exist among members of the Parliamentary Labour Party were denied by the Prime Minister, Mr Savage, on Saturday. He said that the spreading of rumours to the effect that he was contemplating resignation was beyond his comprehension. No doubt it was propaganda. “In the first place, after having gone through the election campaign and met the people in their tens of thousands and had their goodwill expressed in such measure from time to lime in various parts of the country, to me it would look like a betrayal of the people to think of any such thing as resigning,” said Mr Savage. “I have told them on many occasions that there was no power on earth outside of the people themselves could shift me from the Prime Ministership. That stands today. I told them from time to time that I knew the people I was working with, men and women in and out of Parliament, and I was not making any promise I could not fulfil. I hope to be able to go to the end of my days in the service of “the people.

“I know there is a certain amount of propaganda still going on in financial circles against the Government, but we will live through it all and New Zealand will come out of it.with flying colours. A good deal is said about democracy these days, and I would like, in passing, to say to those who give lip service to democratic principles that actions speak louder than words, and unless democracy can be made, as President Roosevelt has so aptly put it, a living thing expressed in the everyday lives and actions of the people, it is not worth much. I hope everyone in industry, and outside it, so far as that goes, will take some notice of that.

“Democracy means more than simply lip service. It means not spreading rumours about the Prime Minister or any other Minister from time to time, but seeing to it that the ideals to which I think most New Zealanders subscribe are given effect to.” Mr Savage said that he had gone before the electors and told them without any qualification that he Avas Prime Minister of New Zealand, representing a great political party, and pledging himself to the people. He was not going to let them down nor would he be a party to their betrayal in any shape or form.