Flemming, Hugh John

CONVOCATION, OCTOBER, 1953
HUGH JOHN FLEMMING
to be Doctor of Laws

We are assembled here to honour three men, who by their intimate association with its very solid bed-rock are making, and are still to make, each his individual contribution to the common weal of this Province.

The first of these, standing before you, is one who, from his stalwart bearing and solid background, should be a leader, after our own hearts. He is a true son of New Brunswick, and having worked since a lad in lumber, he brings to his authoritative post (as you, Mr. President, have reminded us) experience gained at first-hand of this, our great staple industry.

For this post nine years of political life have been invaluable schooling, spent as they have been in the stern classroom of His Majesty's loyal Opposition. When to all this we add that he has at his side in Mrs. Flemming a helpmate of singular charm and understanding, we may justly deem him to be of the very stuff of which we would have our First Ministers made.

He succeeds to the Premiership at a time when new industries are springing up to rival the old, and to quicken the pulse of this venerable Province. The minerals of Bathurst are not, indeed, the exclusive treasure trove of his young government. But their successful working will be that government's responsibility. The lot has truly fallen to him in a fair ground. May he see to it that the zinc and the lead, the iron, the silver and the gold, make not this People's heart to wax fat, but be put to the noblest use of which great wealth under enlightened leadership is capable.

From:
Cattley, Robert E.D. Honoris causa: the effervescences of a university orator. Fredericton: UNB Associated Alumnae, 1968.