JEERS TO CHEERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 275, 20 November 1935, Page 11

JEERS TO CHEERS.

TRIBUTE TO FIGHTER. "YOU ARE GOING TO LISTEN." LABOTTR TAKEN TO TASK. Seventy-five per cent of an audience of about 500 at St. Matthew's Hall last evening were opposed to Mr. C. B» Dodd, Democrat candidate for Auckland Central, when he opened his meeting. He had to shout to be heard above the hubbub of jeering interjections, and at one stage he was shouted down for a period of several minutes. "You are going to listen to me," thundered the candidate. A lone voice chanting "one, two, three, four" was drowned at the close of the meeting, when a large part of the audience joined in cheere for the candidate. It was a tribute to a fighting speaker, though no motion was put. Through a running fire of heckling, Mr. Dodd levelled an attack at the Government for its lack of action regarding the finances of the Native Department and the High Commiseioner's Office, and refused to be disturbed until a man walked to the platform exhibiting a large sheet of paper on which was reproduced a newspaper story about "starvation in New Zealand," and label "Vote Labour." The candidate attempted to snatch it from his hand, but the interrupter pulled it away and walked about the hall showing it. OOhc Labour Party. "There is a member of the Labour party," shouted the candidate above a babel of tongues. "That is the kind of thing we can expect from Labour; it is the kind of thing we will get if the party is elected to power. And they are the men who want free speech.

"Yoli can come here from Parnell, from Koskill, from Grey Lynn, from West, and from East, you can kick up all the row you want to," declared Mr. Dodd. "But if you think you can get me rattled you haven't got a show. My friends, you are going to listen to me to-night." Later he said, "I'm making the greatest battle Auckland Central has ever seen, and what's more I haven't run nway from it. I haven't put a notice in the paper saying I have a relaxed throat ..."

His further remarks were lost in a storm of heckling coming from all quarters of the room —women screaming and men shouting. Pandemonium reigned for some minutes, while the candidate stood silent and the chairman, Mr. R. Burton, waved his arm in an attemx>t to restore order. Fair Hearing Asked. "As an elector of this district, I ask that the candidate be given a fair hearing," shouted a man from the side, but again there was bedlam* The Man: Mr. Dodu, I rail on you to exercise your rights. There's a man used filthy language down there. "Let them go," fiaid the candidate. "When they get that wind off their cheste they'll feel better." Later Mr. Dodd received a more quiet hearing, and as he urged that schools of all denominations should be given help by the Education Department if they were in need of it, there was loud applause. "The health of a nation is a first care," he said, speaking of health insurance. A Voice: The birth of a nation. Mr. Dodd: Well, when I look at some of you—it is a pity some of you were born. Some of you fellows are going to get a horrible shock on the 27th. The meeting ended with three cheers for the candidate, the voices drowning the solitary "c'ounting out" of a die-hard inter jector.