MR.WILFORD AT PUKEKOHE.

Auckland Star, Volume 55, Issue 152, 28 June 1924, Page 13

MR.WILFORD AT PUKEKOHE.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —In the correspondence columns of your isue of June 20 appears a letter signed by John Routley, who subscribes himself "Chairman of Mr. Wilford's Pukekohe fleeting," which letter purports to explain away an incident which occurred at that meeting and which is capable of only one explanation, and that quite an obvious one. Mr, Routley is, I believe, Mayor of Pukekohe. As such he was rightly asked to (and rightly did) act in the capacity of chairwp'i at the meeting. Before the meeting he frankly declared that he was not a supporter of the Liberal party or of ilr. Wilford, and he named the party to which he professed allegiance. After the meeting he said the same. Mr. Houtley is as much to be admired for his frankness in this matter as he is open to criticism for the tincture of political prejudice in his description of events as he alleges they occurred at the meeting. It is quite true, as he states, "no vote of want of confidence in the Reform party was proposed or carried." A vote of absolute confidence in the Reform party and in Mr. Massey was, however, proposed and lost, and a vote of confidence in the Liberal party and in Mr. Wilford as its leader was proposed and carried. The motion was carried by at least two to one amid cheers, and the chairman declared it carried, and went homo. In his letter he says he did not formally declare the motion carried, although he admits that two-thirds of those present voted for the motion. About seventy or eighty people did not vote, about three hundred and fifty people voted in favour of Liberalism, and about one hundred and fifty in favour of Reform.— I am, etc. W. H. HORTON, M.8., Sydney.