A DENIAL

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 76, 27 September 1927, Page 11

A DENIAL

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —I am not ■ surprised that you, have decided tooloso.tho corrospondonce. about the alleged Licensing compact? of 1918, but as my name is brought in by Mr. Eaw in-the concluding sentences of his Jetter on < Saturday, I crave leave for a brief roply by way of personal explanation. The passage is as follows,: —• Tho Now Zealand-Alliance, through tho Eovs. E. S. Gray and John Dawson, acceded ,to tho inclusion of tho throe-issue ballot paper in that Bill, and Mr. A» B. Atkinson became a party to it also. They all approved of that Bill." .Their alleged subsequent catogoricaldonialis, the correspondent asserts, a mcro fiction perpetuated by Mr. Murray. My answer is that neither the Rev. E. S. Gray nor the Eev. John Dawson "acceded to the inclusion of the threeissue ballot-paper" in tho Licensing Bill of 1918, nor did'l.- None.of us either approved of tho Bill, or cntored into any compact, undertaking, or understanding with regard to tho ballot 1 jraper, eithor personally or for our party. Our categorical denial of the gross charge afterwards mado against us is Hot fiction but fact. Tho Eev. E. S. Gray was then dead, but tho charge was categorically, and mmutoly donied by the Eev. J. Dawsou in a signed statemerit submitted to a Committee of tho IJouso of Representatives.—l am, etc., A. B. ATKINSON.

27th September.