B Station Protest Meeting

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 59, 2 December 1933, Page 9

B Station Protest Meeting

Sir, —Last evening, at the meeting arranged by the 2ZW Club, being late, I was unable to gain admittance to the body of the hall, but I found a way to get to the back of the stage. At that moment a motion, of which I was in favour. was being put to the meeting, and carried. Next came No. 2 motion. Well, Sir, two gentlemen spoke to t.he resolution, and then the chairman put it to the meeting. Notwithstanding that it had been advertised that there would be free discussion, he did not ask if auyone wished to speak on the motion.

I have never been on a public platform before, and when I arrived at the meeting I had no intention of speaking on the subject before the meeting—in fact, I knew nothing about it, but the way the people who were running the meeting were conducting the people made me “see red” for a moment, and I rushed on to the stage to protest. Although the chairman had declared the motion carried, he allowed me to speak. Now, as stated above, I had no intention of speaking, and have never spoken in public before, but the people put up with me, and I could only say my thoughts as they came to me, and possibly I did not make myself clear.

My way of thinking is this: The people went to the meeting with the intention of asking the Broadcasting Board to give them the same type of programmes as they had received from 2ZW in the past, and at the same time to take over lie 2ZW staff. They passed a motion to that effect. Now, as regards the second motion. There are no private B class stations m ■Wellington that could benefit, even if the Government took any notice of the resolution that was carried by the meeting. Tlie main B stations in the province are helped by the board, so even they would not be able to put on advertisements. The management of this meeting proposed a motion that they knew would be passed without the people stopping to think, that would only profit those in the position to form a company to start a new private B class station with power to advertise. I did not intend to write this letter, but in the audience were many business acquaintances of mine, and as I was being ordered off .the stage by the secretary of the meeting, who told me that it was their meeting and not mine, the chairman, Mr. R. A. Wright. M.P.. got up and accused another gentleman, who had tried to speak, whose name I did not know at the time, and myself of being Communists. 'Well. Sir, that statement I take exception to. and I would like, through, the medium of your paper, to ask Mr. Wright to prove his statement made to the audience. op admit lie did not know what he was talking about.—l am, etc., R. A. SPENCE. Wellington, December 1.