“NOTHING IN IT”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 April 1939, Page 5

“NOTHING IN IT”

NO BIG BLACK WOLF AROUND THE CORNER MR SAVAGE’S OPTIMISM. HAS NOT LOST CONFIDENCE. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. A declaration that there was no “big. black wolf around the corner” in New Zealand, and that if he did appear at the corner he would come from the imagination of the people and from the fact that the people had lost hope and did not trust themselves, was made by the Prime Minister, Mr Savage, in a brief address at the dance tendered to delegates to the conference of the New Zealand Labour Party and visitors in the Town Hall, Wellington, last night.

Mr Savage arrived at the dance shortly before 9 p.m., and was welcomed by the president of the Wellington Labour Representation Committee. Mr J. O. Johnson. The Prime Minister was accorded musical honours. He entered thoroughly into the spirit of the evening, and immediately assured his hearers that he was not going to talk about politics. “I am not going to make a political speech,” Mr Savage said. “I think that is hardly necessary. Mr Hamilton is doing that at present. It. is delightful to be able to turn aside from politics for at least one evening and to speak about the lighter side of our existence. “I want to assure you that we are not nearly so black as we are painted. We are just people who have had a lot of experience of the rough and tumble side of life. Most of us received our education along the highways and byways, in the factories and in the mines, and that developed our reasoning capacity. I once heard a wellknown educationist say that education was the power to use one’s reasoning under any set of conditions. Labourites have-been trained to use their reasoning, and in the use of it they gener-ally-know which side the bread is buttered on. “What a dull life it would be if we had to be content with reading, say, the leading articles in the newspapers.” the Prime Minister said. “It is delightful to be able to think of the big, black wolf around the corner, the fellow who is waiting for you. That is the tendency, because some people really believe that if a thing is said often enough there must be something in it. “I want to assure you that there is nothing in it. If that big black wolf appears at the corner, he comes from the people’s imagination—from the fact that you have lost hope, that you do not trust yourselves. Well, I have not lost confidence in you at all. I know that things are all right. , I have not lost confidence in my self, and I am sure the people of this country have not either.”