HARBOUR BRIDGE PROTEST

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27011, 10 April 1953, Page 10

HARBOUR BRIDGE PROTEST

“ Discourteous ” Letter To Mr Holland NORTHCOTE COUNCIL CENSURED **The Press” Special Service AUCKLAND, April 9. The Prime Minister (Mr Holland) will not reply to a protest letter sent to him by the Northcote Borough Council about the Auckland harbour bridge. He thinks the letter is discourterous and undignified. The Town Clerk of Northcote (Mr G. M. Kilham) was instructed by a resolution passed at the last meeting of the council “to send a strongly worded letter to the Prime Minister objecting to our intelligence being insulted the way it has by the Prime Minister’s handling of the bridge affairs.” Mr Kilham sent the letter. He received the following reply from the Prime Minister’s chief private secretary, Mr K. M. Sleight:— “The Prime Minister has directed me to acknowledge receipt of your letter of March 14, and to say that he is ready and willing to exchange correspondence with your council when it chooses to couch its communications in terms that comply with ordinary standards of courtesy and dignity.” The Mayor of Northcote (Mr F. M. Pearn) was not available to comment, but the Deputy-Mayor (Cr. J. F. Potter), who moved the resolution directing the protest letter to be sent, said the letter from Mr Sleight would be fully discussed at the next council meeting. The Prime Minister has sent a cyclostyled letter to the several hundred people who sent him telegrams of protest after the bridge protest meeting, “because it was not possible for him to write a separate letter to each.” Mr Holland, in this letter, criticise! some of the telegrams “because they contain threats, intimidations, and objectionable expressions.” He has enjoyed the humour of Others, he says. | Most of (he letter is devoted to reaffirming the Prime Minister's previous declaration that it unfair to blame the Government or him for the present situation. He said it was “quite proper” for the critics to send the telegrams, as they were doing no more than exercising their democratic right.