GRAVE ALLEGATIONS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3134, 12 July 1917, Page 5

GRAVE ALLEGATIONS

- } REGARDING THE POSTAL SERVICE.

By Telegraph-Pross Association. Auckland, July 11. Allegations regarding tho postal service were made by the Rev. Howard Elliott in. tho course of a speech at a meeting of tho Protestant Political Association. Ho ..stated that thero had beon an attempt to stifle the meeting, alleging that it had revealed corruption in the postal service. Envelopes which had contained an invitation to the meoting had, he declared, been opened and the contests abstracted. He knew of letters so posted and delivered empty. Other ■letters posted in duo'timo had not jet been delivered. Tickets and notices of tho meeting sent to Protestant clergy, and posted in timo for delivery last Saturday, were, ho asserted, held up by tho military censor till Monday, so that in the Protestant churches last Sunday no announcement of the meeting could be ma.de. During tho City Council elceions the censorship over the Protestant '-"igilenco Committee's letters had, lie said, been carried out entirely in the iniarest of the Roman Catholics. Ho read letters which ho asserted had been stopped in the post. Tho chairman (Rev. Principal Garland) sai that tho charge made by Mr. Elliott against tho Post Offico was the most serious charge that had been made in the meeting that night. He hoped that Mr. Elliott was certain he could prove his statement. Mr. Elliott: Yes. The chairman: "I hope that the Postmaster will hear- what has been said , here to-night, and he will take proceedings against Mr. Elliott, for we are r.ot men if we can sit quietly down here and that this is the condition in our Tost Office, wheh wo believe to be above suspicion, and take no action, and submit to it." Ho added that on Sundaylast ho was asked after service, "How is it you did not announce the meeting for Wednesday?" His reply was that he . had received no notice. His notice was delivered to him on Tuesday.