"A Dirty Fight"

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22419, 4 June 1938, Page 14

"A Dirty Fight"

The Minister for Public Works and Transport (the Hon. R. Semple) went out of his way in a speech at Johnsonvilie on Thursday to predict that the next General Election campaign would be “a severe and '.dirty fight.”' More mildly, the Minister for Education (the Hon. P. Fraser) suggested to his, audience in Tauranga that “the violence of the leading articles and “the use of headlines from now until the election would surprise even the most hardened.” Following so closely on the fell predictions of the Minister for Labour (the Hon H. T, Armstrong) and the Minister for Industries and Commerce (the Hon. D. G. Sullivan) at a recent function in Christchurch, these pronouncements indicate, with the quartet blowing slightly different instruments though the tune is the same with slight variations, some concerted practice. In other words, it looks as though one of the lines that will be emphasised by Labour Party speakers throughout the General Election campaign and before it will be the alleged “ dirtiness ” of the Opposition’s tactics. It is very, well to be high-minded, Mr Semple told his audience that “the political life of the “nation ought to be kept above slander. The “.fights ought to be clean fights, on funda- “ mental political issues.” Every thoughtful and decent citizen will agree with the Minister there. But he spoilt the whole effect when he predicted that “whispering campaigns, slander “ and vilifications, and every conceivable trick “that can be played on the Government and “its supporters will be played”; and went on to relate a story which he said had been told by a National Party organiser to a friend in Christchurch while Mr Semple was in - Australia, to the effect that he (Mr Semple) had absconded with £50,000 and that when he got there it had worried him into an asylum, from which he would never come out. Mr Semple’s friend—or was it the friend of a friend who told a friend? Mr Semple might investigate that—-must be an extremely simple person. The newspapers were scarcely silent about Mr Semple’s movements while he was in Australia: and any National Party organiser or any other person who would tell such a story and expect to be believed would be incredibly more simple. The dirty fight has already begun; but Mr Semple will have to look inwards to see who has started it. Straws *show which way the wind blows. The direction is obviously vertical. _ /