LOST HIS POWER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 271, 15 November 1935, Page 12

LOST HIS POWER.

FROM PRIVATE TO M.P.

FIGHTING ANOTHER BATTLE.

S.O.S. DID NOT SAVE PENSION. Said Mr. J. A. Lee, sitting Labour candidate for Grey Lynn, at the Ambassador's Theatre, Pt. Chevalier, last night: 'IDuring the Great War I was Private John Alexander Lee. Yet I, Private John Alexander Lee, had wonderful power. In the front line trenches, by speaking three simple words into a telephone, I could command guns costing hundreds of thousands of pounds to fire shells costing tens of thousands of pounds to be lired at fellow human beings, mutilating and destroying those we called 'the enemy. 1 S.O.S. —Save Our Souls —were the words, and'millions of pounds were found to destroy the foe. Money was no object. "Some years afterwards I became Mr. J. A. Lee, member of His Majesty's Parliament. I again had occasion to use those three words —'Save Our Souls.' The Government of the day was taking away from a blind boy, whose father had been killed in the service of his country, the small war pension that had been granted him. " 'Save Our Souls' had, however, become but mere words. I, Mr. J. A. Lee, M.P., had lost that great power. What was the response to my urgent call? George Forbes, Prime Minister, replied, 'Where are we going to get the money? . That poor blind boy had no father to fight his battle, and S.O.S. was useless." Mr. Lee condemned a system that allowed such an anomaly to eyist.. He was given a most attentive and favourable hearing, and an enthusiastic vote of confidence.