The division was most exciting.
Three members, including Mr de Valera, abstained from voting, and two pro-treaty men voted for Mr de Valera.
The majority of the observers thought that Mr de Valera had won, but the figures showed otherwise.
A feature of the proceedings is the evident affection of all parties for Mr de Valera.
He took his defeat gracefully, and sat smiling.
When he rose he spoke calmly and without bitterness, and gave as wide a promise to help Mr Griffith as could be expected. The division indicates that the Dail is determined to defeat every effort to nullify the treaty.
After the vote rejecting Mr de Valera’s re-election, Mr Griffith rose and said; “It is not a vote against Mr de Valera.
I want to say here and now that there is scarcely a man I ever loved more than him. We want de Valera with us.”
Mr de Valera was greeted with shouts of “Up, de Valera”, and all the deputies sprang to their feet cheering.
In replying to the ovation Mr de Valera said: “You must regard us as an auxiliary army, whose objective is complete independence for Ireland.
I hope no-one will talk about fratricidal strife. You will want us yet.”
34degC Waihola’s top temperature
Ninety-four degrees in the shade at Waihola on Friday last! Whew!
At Dunedin on the same day the maximum temperature in the shade was 83 degrees.
Climatology should be an exact science, but it must be supposed that there are factors at work which tend to confusion in results.
It is beyond belief that there was a difference of 11 degrees in the temperature on one day at Dunedin and at Waihola.
Friday last was a sultry day in Dunedin, impelling women eagerly into a display of their lightest and coolest clothes,
driving men reluctantly to discard vests or coats in their offices, and tempting all irresistibly to where they could secure a breath of fresh air.
In Waihola, if the temperature was really and truly 94 degrees in the shade, the residents will, I imagine, have sought relief en masse in or on the lake.
What is ‘‘in the shade”, anyhow? The expression lends itself to more than one construction, not necessarily scientific.
Will the Government Meteorologist, or whoever compiles the weather data for New Zealand accept the Waihola record as authentic?
— by ‘Wayfarer’
—ODT, 11.1.1922
