A LINK SOMEWHERE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 254, 26 October 1928, Page 8

A LINK SOMEWHERE.

LOAN TO RADIO COMPANY.

AND AN ALTERED ARTICLE.

ALLEGATIONS BY MR. HOLLAND.

(By Telegraph.r-PrtSß Association.)

WELLINGTON, Thursday.

Stressing the charge, that Mr. Coates and the Government had been responsible for wrecking the co-operative marketing effort of the primary producers, Mr. H. E. Holland in his speech in the Town Hall to-night referred to a statement made by Mr. W. Grounds at the annual meeting of the National Dairy Association at Palmerston North to the effect that in May, 1927, Mr. W. Goodfellow had written an article for the "Exporter," in the original draft of which it was set forth that the scheme of absolute control had been wrecked by the propaganda of vested interests and that if it had not been for the Government's action and the action of its appointees the producers in New Zealand would have been saved the disaster of the 1927 season.

The article was altered before it appeared in print, according to Mr. Grounds' statement, and in its altered form it set forth that the scheme of absolute control had been wrecked by dissensions within the industry and by the farmers themselves, and' furthermore, that the breaking down of control was largely due to the action of the Labour party. This charge, said Mr. Holland, had apparently been made after Mr. Coates had been interviewed by certain persons, and it was about this time that the Radio Broadcasting Company, of which Mr. Goodfellow was one of the principals, secured a loan from the Postal Department of £15,000, which loan was made without authority of Parliament. Apparently there was somewhere a connecting link between the "Exporter" article and the loan to the Radio Broadcasting Coinpany.

It was an interesting coincidence that the same man edited the "Exporter" and the "Radio Record," and that both these papers were supporters and defenders of the policy oi" the Government.