UNITED PARTY'S REPLY

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 11, 14 July 1928, Page 10

UNITED PARTY'S REPLY

EMPHATIC DENIAL NOT RESPONSIBLE" FOR! "■ ■■ MESSAGE ' The organiser of the United Party (Mr. Davy), in a' statement to "The Post" regarding Mr. Wright's charge, said that this was the most scurrilous attack yet made by one political party against another. Referring to the alle? gation that the United Party had been responsible for-an article ai)pearing in a newspaper outside Wellington on 10th July, and concerning the alleged connection between three prominent Wellington citizens and the United Party, Mr. Davy said: "I give the allegation not only an emphatic denial, but in addition state that Mr. Wright had not a shadow of a foundation for making such a serious charge. One would expect that a Minister of the Crown would refrain from taking advantage of his Parliamentary privilege with a view to misleading the public, knowing that he dare not truthfully assert this statement outside. The article quoted by Mr. Wright was apparently sent from Wellington, as it is headed 'Special to the Sun,' Wellington, To-day." It must therefore have come from a Wellington correspondent of the 'Sun' newspaper. The moment I received the article I wired an urgent contradiction, which has since appeared in the 'Sun' of 13th July. If Mr. Wright, in his eager haste to make political capital of tho situation, had paused for the moment and gone to the trouble to ascertain the source of the report, as I have done, he would have, found that the journalist responsible for the article in question received his information from a Reform source." Mr. Davy said that he was writing

the Minister of Education demanding a retraction of his several statements against the United Party to be made in the House and in the newspapers. "It is quite unnecessary for the United Party to publish the names of business men as members of the party when those gentlemen have not even been consulted, when we have associated with us business men of high standing from all portions of the Dominion." "To quote Mr. Wright's own words: 'A party that is going to exist by the circulation of wilfully misleading statements about its opponents will not be supported in New Zealand.' Again: 'A party with such tactics as that will never get anywhere.' I entirely agree with Mr. Wright in this regard, and suggest to him that it is his own party only that is indulging in such tactics, as evidenced by these facts. On my final interview with the Prime Minister he remarked to me that if I fought fair we should still be friends. I replied that so long as the Reform Party fought cleanly I should do the same. I claim that the United Party is fighting a vigorous, but clean campaign, but the direct opposite is being indulged in by Mr. Coates 's own party. The Coates party, for its own safety, should not drive others into such disclosures of Reform tactics. This fact should cause Mr. Coates to warn Mr. Wright and other members' of his party against making any further attempts to belittle their opponents by such gross untruths." ' ■