PROGRESS OF THE CAMPAIGN

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 137, 8 December 1919, Page 7

PROGRESS OF THE CAMPAIGN

SIR JOSEPH WARD & THE

LABOUR PARTY

APPEAL TO MODERATE SECTION

(BI TmEaBAPD,—PBBSS ABBOCUTJOS,) CHRISTCHURCH, 6th December.

In his address at Leeston last evening Sir Joseph Ward referred to his attitude towards the Labour Party. He said ho was against the men who wanted direct action, tlie men who did not realise the position the Dominion was in to-day, and he wanted to aay that they would be responsible for bringing about a condition of things in this country incomparably worse than they were before. If people in this country wanted to prevent the small seeds'.of Bolshevism from being sown here and growing up and spreading about the country, they must Tecognise Labour. He was standing for the country's good and appealing to the moderate section of the community to help. If he were returned as head of tße Government he would give Labour its fair representation in that Government. It was not only right, but it was a farseeing thing to do. Mr. W. A. Veitch had been "on the footplate" when the speaker was Minister for Railways. ' That, class of man in the Government of this country would be an antidote against the sowing of those seeds he had referred to. A nettle, said Sir Joseph Ward, must be grasped.

He pointed out that whenever the extreme section of tho Labour Party in the House levelled any criticism against public men, it was generally directed against himself. In two places he had refused to put up candidates as if he did so this representatives of that extreme party would probably get in. He was not disposed to rest under the imputation that he was in league With the extreme party. The people could go to Messrs. Fraser or Holland and theywould find he had never spoken to either of them in regard to politics of tho future. No agreement had ever been made, and' it was a deliberate lie to say such an agreement had been arranged.