DISLOYALTY DENIED

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22243, 6 November 1937, Page 16

DISLOYALTY DENIED

MINISTER’S REPLY TO CHARGE

A denial of the charge made in Parliament that he had been disloyal m criticising British manufacturers wnue on the Continent was made by the Minister for Labour (the Hon. IE TV Armstrong) at a meeting of the East Christchurch branch of the New Zealand Labour Party last evening. Mr Armstrong said he had been elected chairman of the textile committee at the International Labour Conference. It was the only committee to secure the necessary majority to pass the 40-hoiir convention, and it had been carried in spite of the confidence of employers that the employers’ representatives on the committee would prevent the necessary majority of two-thirds from being obtained. It was a sign of the progress being made throughout a world in which no one would have believed a few years ago that even a 48-hour convention would have been carried. “The thing that impressed me more than anything else —coming from a British country as I did—was that countries Ime Poland and Turkey voted with me, while British countries voted against me,” said Mr Armstrong. “I come back to Parliament in New Zealand and_ i am told that I was disloyal in criticising British manufacturers. Under me circumstances, I consider I wouMhave been more disloyal if I had not.