COMMENT ON MR. LEE’S POSITION

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 77, 23 December 1939, Page 12

COMMENT ON MR. LEE’S POSITION

Colleague’s Statement

STRAINED RELATIONS REFERRED TO Issue Of Party Pledges By Telegraph—Press Association, TIMARU, December 22. Interviewed today Mr. Clyde Carr, M.P. for Timarti, a prominent member of the so-called Left wing of the Parliamentary Labour Party, said it was general knowledge that relations between Mr. Lee, M.P. for Grey Lynn, and Mr. Nash bad been somewhat strained. Mr. Lee's position as Undersecretary to Mr. Nash had been purely nominal since Mr. Armstrong assumed tlie portfolio of State Advances and Housing.

Apparently Mr. Lee's recent article in “Tomorrow” brought mutters to a head. In the opinion of Mr. Carr the’article was well written but precipitate. It was always dangerous to indulge in over-generalization.

Mr. Carr said that -Mr. Lee, himself and others connected witli them agreed that the Labour Government, including Mr. Nash, had done a great deal to implement the Labour Parly’s pledges, but in certain respects they were not satisfied, particularly regarding financial matters, banking legislation and administration generally. These to a large extent represented the different attitudes of mind inevitable in any intelligent group.

Though he deprecated and detested hero worship, he realized that changes of leadership must never be considered without a due sense of their gravity. Agreements within the party vastly outnumbered the differences just as their differences with the Opposition vastly outnumbered agreements with them. The obvious implication of Mr. Lee's article was that the present Prime Minister was allowing his sense of duty to outweigh a due regard for his own health. At least that was how ho (Mr. Carr) would have expressed it. To Air. Lee it would appear rather that it was a mistaken sense of duty and that Mr. Savage’s condition of health .should occasion him even more concern from a national than from a personal point of view. Air. Savage’s disposition to overrule the will of caucus might be due to ether causes, and was a problem to be considered without passion or conflict of irrelevant matters such as what his health might or might not be. it should be dealt witli promptly and eft'ec tive 1 y, however.