TWO-SIDED AFFAIR

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 38, 14 February 1941, Page 5

TWO-SIDED AFFAIR

POLITICAL SPHERE

OPPOSITION PARTY'S RIGHT

REACHING ITS PUBLIC

(Special to the "Evening Post. ?I)

CHRISTCHURCH, This Day

"It is bad enough having only one side told over the air, yet now it appears that the Prime Minister, Mr. Fraser, wants the same conditions for public speaking," said the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Holland, today in an interview in which he replied-to ciiticisni of his action in conducting a North Island tour.

. "Mr. Fraser seems in some difficulty in understanding the need for such a tour as I have just concluded, and I am only too pleased to explain. First of all the Prime Minister will recall that the Government refuses Opposition speakers the use of broadcasting Services, so of necessity my colleagues and I have to use the public platform and newspapers for presenting our side of the case—and there are two sides to every story."

Mr. Holland went on to mention some points he had Been making, including the question of forming a National Government. If Mr. Fraser was upset because Mr. Holland had addressed a meeting of friends and supporters of the National Party, Mr. Holland wondered how the Prime Minister felt when he reminded him that his Deputy Prime Minister, Mr. Nash, was addressing a public meeting in Dunedin at the very time that Mr. Holland was sp.eaking in Taranaki. It would be cruel to remind Mr. Fraser of many meetings of the Labour Party addressed by the Prime Minister himself, the Minister of Railways, Mr. Semple, and Mr. Nash, to say nothing of Mr. Webb's notorious "Julius Caesar" speech at Denniston.

"Apparently the Prime Minister considers 'it quite all right -for his side to address meetings everywhere, but quite wrong for the other side to do the same," concluded Mr. Holland.