on the Government benches was so frequently interrupted. He took charge not only of his own departments, but also of the departments of all the other Ministers, and defended them in detail, until the House was surprised at the mass of particulars he had accumulated and had placed ready for use.
“I’m sure,” he said, after he had defended his colleagues, “I must thank members of the Opposition for their kind consideration in not, so far, saying much against me during this debate, in fact, ever since I have been a Minister. I hope we shall always remain on the same terms.”
“Wait till we come to the public works; your time’s coming,” shouted back an Oppositionist.
“Well, sir,” he replied, “if my time is coming I should say there is ‘a good time coming.’ I am not one of those who run away. Publicly, privately, and in my capacity as a member of the Government, I prefer to face danger, and simply say, ‘Come on,’ and I say so now.”
“Who gave manhood suffrage?” interrupted one of his opponents when he touched on the franchise.
“Sir George Grey and his party.”
“No, Sir John Hall.”
“Sir George Grey, I say,” he insisted, “gave this country manhood suffrage. I say it was Sir George Grey and the Liberal Party, as the four Auckland members who entered into compact with Sir John Hall to support his Government said that their reasons for doing so was to carry out Sir George Grey’s programme. That is why the Hall Government is not entitled to thanks for it.”
“I say the Continuous Government was routed at the last elections,” he said in another part of his speech; “and there is an Administration here now———”
“You won’t last long!”
“Long or short, here we are, and we cannot be worse than the previous Administration.”
A journalist who sat in the Press Gallery of the House on that evening and listened to the speech, supplied a graphic description of it to his journal next morning.
