"PETULANT CHILD"

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 40, 17 February 1937, Page 13

"PETULANT CHILD"

MR. HARGEST'S RETORT

(By Telegraph—Press Association.) INVERCARGILL, February 16r

"The Hon. R. Semple has evidently tired of acting as a kind of mountebank to the Ministry and now seeks further notoriety by castigating the Leader of the Opposition and myself for imagined snubs," said Mr. J. Hargest tonight, replying to Mr. Semple's criticism of his absence from his electorate during the Minister's visit. "It should be unnecessary for me to say that no snub.was intended," said Mr. Hargest. ''The date of- the quarterly meeting of the executive of the National Party was arranged as .far back as November, and when I found that the meeting clashed with Mr. Semple's visit . I wrote to him expressing my regret, that I would not be able to accompany him to Stewart Island. I set out the requirements of the deputations there and the names of the spokesmen and my views on case. This was to give him an opportunity to consult his departmental officers and so enable him to give an intelligent reply. Any person with the first instincts of manliness would have accepted my explanation and not behaved like a petulant child. When it became impossible to attend at Invercargill I telegraphed Mr. W. M. C. Denhan, M.P., asking him to take my three deputations, and also telegraphed the leaders of those deputations. ■ I could not do more. The Minister's references to. the duties of members leave me cold. I do not accept reproof from a man whose conception of duty is to race up and down the Dominion hurling vituperation at his political opponents in a way undreamed of by his predecessors of any party. I may inform him that a member's duties do not begin and end with receiving Ministers of the Crown, and that while in Wellington, coincidentally with taking a share in a very important conference, I was able to perform some service to a considerable number of -my constituents. So long as Mr. Semple is a Minister and I am a member of Parliament I will be glad to meet him in my electorate with all the courtesy I command, provided there is nothing more important to occupy my attention, but no. amount of bombast or bathos on his part will persuade me to submit to his dictation." - ■ '