OLDEST LABOUR PARTY BRANCH

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22414, 30 May 1938, Page 5

OLDEST LABOUR PARTY BRANCH

CO THX BDITOB or THB PEKBB. Sir, —In Monday’s issue Mr J. Roberts, president of the North Canterbury Labour Representation Committee, speaking afa social gathering at Woolston, claimed that the Woolston branch of the Labour Party was the oldest in the Dominion and three speakers at its formation were the Hon. D, G, Sullivan, the Hon. J. A. McCullough, and Mr Hiram Hunter, who had since fallen by the wayside. Yes, I was the prime mover in the formation of all the branches around Christchurch, including WColston, in that I made the necessary arrangements for the meetings. Christchurch East and Christchurch South were, if my memory serves; formed before Woolston. As to my having “fallen by the wayside,” that is a phrase as old as the hills, repeated parrot-like by such as Mr Roberts, Well, I am not a cot case yet, as he and his friends are well aware. I was “dealt with” by him and his colleagues at a meeting arranged for the purpose, for pointing out how far divergent were the democratic professions and undemocratic actions of our Labour politicians, both local and national. We are well aware that the Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage gave the British statesmen a broad hint that he could teach them a good deal were they prepared to listen. We also know that our High Commissioner, Mr W. J. Jordan, is competent to run the League of Nations at Geneva, that the Hon. H. T. Armstrong gave the British manufacturers an invitation to come to New Zealand to learn how to run their factories, and so on. New Zealand is the torch that lights the world; and, yet so backward, internally, that we have to rely on importations, such as Mr Roberts, to teach New Zealanders wisdom, and Australians to govern us. •Is it not high tiine that we took a tumble and that our own kith and kin woke up'to a sense of their responsibilities?— Yours, etc., HIRAM HUNTER. May 27,1938.