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Evening Post, Volume XCV, Issue 41, 16 February 1918, Page 8

A Press Association telegram from Haetinge states that the Rev. Howard Elliott addressed a meeting of about 200 people there last.night.. There was no disturbance' of any kind, and it was imanimoi»2y resolved to form a Hastings branch of the Protestant Political League.

An emphatic and. absolute denial to a rumour which has been current in certainparts was given by Sir James Allen, Minister of Defence, in his reply to the Second Division League deputation at Invercargill on Tuesday. The Minister stated that he had heard it said that he had used every means that lay in his power-to postpone the calling up of the Second Division for the reason that he was afraid to call it up. He wished to absolutely contradict, that statement, and to say that, so far as his knowledge went, he knew of no Second Division man who would circulate it. TTor, so far he kriew, every Second Dnjsionist was just as ready and willing—perhaps more so in some instances—to go, as had been the men of the First Division. He did not deny his conviction that it was their absolute duty to clean up the First Division as completely as possible first, and that he had used every means in his power to postpone the calling up of the Second Division, because he felt that to be his duty; but he was not afraid. He had never been accused of cowardice since he took up the portfolio of Defence, and he was not a coward.

According to a Press Asociation message from Christchurch, the Hon. G. W. Russell, in the course of a reply to a deputation, remarked that the next General Election would probably be in about a year from now.

A meeting of the Wellington Second Division League is advertised to be held on Tuesday evening. The business will include tne_ questions of grants made by the Financial Assistance Board and increased soparation allowances to Home Service men. ,<