CONDEMNED BY MAYOR

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 114, 16 May 1941, Page 9

CONDEMNED BY MAYOR

LABOUR'S TACTICS

INCIDENT IN CANDIDATE'S

OFFICE

The names of five Labour union officials who took part in the alleged attempt to intimidate Mr. H. L. Nathan, a candidate for the Harbour Board, in his office last Friday were given by him at the final meeting of electors addressed by the Mayor and other candidates on the Citizens' ticket in the Concert Chamber last night. The meeting unanimously. recorded its disgust that such tactics should have been introduced into the campaign, and expressed also its full confidence in the Mayor and candidates on the Citizens' ticket. Mr. Stanton Harcourt j was in the chair. The attendance was the largest of any in the 1941 cam-j paign. Mr. Nathan -said he had intended to let the matter drop after making his statement at Kelburn and not to disclose names until after the election was over. He had had a few anony^ mous telephone rings—one and two a day and certainly nothing to worry about—but yesterday afternoon he had been stopped by two men who said that he did not dare to give the names, which, they said, was just what they wanted. " If they wanted the names they could have them, concluded Mr. Nathan, and he placed before the meeting the names of five men all occupying prominent positions in rthe Labour . movement. "A DISGUSTING EPISODE." "This is one of the most disgusting episodes in the history of Wellington," said Mr. Hislop. "It is an episode based on the methods with which this country is at war. What occurred in Mr. Nathan's office has been going on for quite a time, but this is one of the occasions when something that has been going on has emerged and thrown up its head. "Now this has been brought to light it is in the hands of their own people to clean it up straight away. The j Labour Representation Committee said in effect that they knew nothing about it, because it was not sufficiently definite' to reply to. In fact, said the Labour Representation Committee, 'it was incredible.' Immediately below the Labour Representation Committee's statement that 'it was incredible' was, the statement of the Trades Council, i and that was a report of the episode in Mr. Nathan's office obviously prepared or given to the Trades Council by someone who must have known who were the five rrien in ,the show.

"If in this election it had come to my knowledge that anyone on my platform had been behaving in the manner of these five Labour officials disclosed by Mr. Nathan, I and others would have turned them off the ticket," said Mr. Hislop.

As the: meeting was the last of the campaign1 of Citizens' candidates the addresses made by other candidates, for the City Council, Hospital Board, and Harbour Board, were necessarily brief.' All emphasised that it was vital that all supporters of the Citizens* ticket should register their votes on Saturday, for the election this year had a new and special significance.