THE WOODVILLE BANQUET.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3962, 13 November 1891, Page 2

THE WOODVILLE BANQUET.

Speoob of tho Member for Masterton.

A Perfect Bore.

According to the Woodville Examiner Mr Hogg came up smiling at the banquet the other evening. He began by saying he had listened to so many speeches and songs that it had made him hoarse. Then he proceeded to tell a story in which an inebriated individual darned Thompson, a candle that stood ou end, drawers, ami the moon, all figured, and followed it with another about two more bibulous individuals with both sun and moon as properties. Then in some mysterious manuer he introduced the Knights of Labour, which body, he said, " was essentially in every point a political organisation " which " was determined to do away with class legislation," and the speaker hoped all who did not belong already would joinjt. They had now in Parliament tor the first time in the history of the colony, a Labour I'ariy, intrenched behind the Ministerial benches. The speaker then touched lightly on the situation in Great Britain, North and South America, and elsewhere, on the Russian famine, and on tho scheme of General Booth, ."a man animated by, splendid impulse," but, Mr Hogg thought, " the experiment should be earned out in the neighbourhood of the cities it was sought to relieve,'' whereat there was an acquiescent applause, and the speaker added that we did not \vauj; ••our population deteriorated—not even adulterated. We must kaep New Zealand fqr the ijew Zeal ind-r's, and not hare the wolyes fponi otjjer cpurjr tries.'' Having tljus disposed qf the ''submerged tenth," Mr Hogg said that the Labour party bad accomplished one reform —Bellamy's was beginning to pay. In the bad old times—before the advent of the Labor party— «• the tumblers U3ed were tub-shaped, and held Is 6d to 2s worth of good whiskey " _ for which the monopolist member paid only 61. It was no wonder, rematked Mr Hogg, that Bellamy's had not paid. The advent of the labor party altered this, and the tub tumblers were exchanged for tea-cups. "Having swept away the monopolistic t'urgblefs, the speaker proceeded to §ta/,e frnat'fibey me'lmt to sweep away the Upper House. A referenoe to the prosperity of the district closed Mr Hogg's oration. The hour wa< late, and the people had been dropping out in twos und threes, but now they began to go in tens, and Ministers were fidgeting uneasily on their seats behind the Uatform.