LABOUR PARTY CONFERENCE

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26513, 30 August 1951, Page 8

LABOUR PARTY CONFERENCE

MR MCALPINE REPLIES TO MR LABY

Newspaper reports were produced by Mr J. K. McAlpine, National Party candidate for Selwyn, when he replied at Sumner last evening to a challenge issued by the secretary of the North Canterbury Labour > Representation Committee (Mr J. L. Laby) to prove a statement made at Riccarton on Monday evening. The statement was: “At the last conference of the New Zealand Labour Party there was a motion to remove Communists from the party. It was defeated narrowly —but it was defeated.’’

“All I can say is that I have checked mv facts and figures.” said Mr McAlpine. “I have two newspaper cuttings to back up my assumption that there was an attempt to pass such a motion.” Mr McAlpine then read to the meeting the cuttings, which he said were dated June 13. One was a report in “The Press” of the annual conference of the Labour Party held in Christchurch. It said: “An indication has been given that the party’s attitude to the dispute (waterfront) will not be that of the New Zealand Federation of Labour. During discussion earlier in the day on the proposed new constitution for the party, the secretary of the federation (Mr K. McL. Baxter) is believed to have put forward a proposal that a clause should be introduced excluding from affiliation with the Labour Party any trade union affiliated with the World Federation of Trade Unions. The proposal, it is understood, was heavily defeated. Mr Baxter’s proposal would have automatically excluded the deregistered waterside workers’ union which is affiliated with the maritime section of the W.F.TU.” Mr McAlpine said that Mr Laby had not made any statement on the day following the publication of the report that it was untrue, nor had any of the hundreds of delegates at the conference complained of it, but when he used it in the course of an election campaign Mr Laby contradicted him.