M.P. ATTACKS MR. FORBES

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 91, 14 October 1931, Page 10

M.P. ATTACKS MR. FORBES

ANOTHER INDEPENDENT

Mr. E. F. Healy, M.P. for Wairau, addressed a very large audience of Kaikoura electors on Monday evening in the drill hall. There was an attendance of about 400 people (states tho "Christchurch .Star").

Mr. James Boyd, county chairman, presided. He congratulated Mr. Healy on I]is wonderful energy and efforts in helping to secure the completion of the South Island main trunk line. Mr. Boyd said that he personally bad supported Mr. Forbes for over twenty years, but it was his opinion that Mr. Forbes had betrayed them after so mauy years of efforts in connection with the line.

Mr. Healy, w'bo was greeted with musical honours, said that he agreed with the remarks of the chairman. The speaker, as a member of the United Party, had been returned to power with the party, and one of the main planks in the party's programme was the completion of the railway line. The result of the vote on the Eailways Board's finding had placed the speaker in an entirely false position, and he felt that the people of Marlborough bad been let down badly.

"CONTINUAL EYESORE."

Tho stoppage of the line would be a continual eyesore to the people of Marlboroiigh with the work half com--pleted. They had started ' work two years ago with seventy-two miles of line to build, and now that a gap of only twenty-eight miles existed the work was stopped. He had introduced thu deputation to Parliament, and the action of the Prime Minister in not even shaking hands with men who had been his strong supporters for over twenty years was shameful. Mr. Forbes had handed over the reins of office, and he (the speaker), for one, would not belong to the party. (Loud applause.) Ho criticised Mr. Coates's railway administration and tho millions he had spent, on Arapuni, railway workshops, the Palmcrston deviation, and the Taupo work —a purely political line. Tho Middleton yards in Christchurch were built at enormous expense, and to-day were not used. The Auckland railway station had cost untold wealth, and now thoy found it was necessary to build a light line between -the new and the old station.

When the actual time for voting on the Railway Board's findings in the House approached, despite the repsated assertions that it was to bo a strictly open vote, the party whips cracked. Members were taken into Mr. Forbes's office, and what happened after? These members voted aa they were told' —a wonderful non-party vote. Regarding his position in the House, there might be an election —possibly the English elections would influence the position —and he wished to act with a free hand during the term of the present Government, with the opportunity of reviewing his position when the election came.

A motion by Mr. F. Smith that Mr. Hcajy be given a free hand in Parliament was put to the meeting and carried without a dissenting voice.