LABOUR'S POLICY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 72, 22 September 1943, Page 6

LABOUR'S POLICY

CENTRAL ELECTORATE

ADDRESS BY MR. FRASER

Referring to his recent New Zealand tour, the Prime Minister (Mr. Fraser) told a large attendance at his meeting in the Brougham Street Hall last night that all the indications were that Labour would be returned to office with an overwhelming majority. Mr. Fraser addressed a number of meetings yesterday, and besides speaking at the Brougham Street Hall . he also spoke at a meeting in Newtown earlier in the evening in support of Mr. R. McKeen's candidature for Wellington South. Mr. Fraser said he was particularly anxious that in Wellington Central, which was in some respects really the central electorate of the Capital and also of the country, that allegiance to the Labour Government should not only be maintained but that it should be done by an even greater majority than hitherto.

During the time he had been away from the electorate his opponents had been busy doing what they could to pull his majority and himself down. He was not going to refer that evening —and he hoped he would not have occasion to do so in any of his addresses before polling day—to some of the stupid remarks that had been made. (Hear,, hears.) Some of those remarks were beneath notice, as they were beneath contempt, and the claims of some of the candidates were just simply preposterous. However, he regretted that the Nationalist candidate, Mr. Appleton, should have dragged in the name of General Freyberg. There was no one who was entitled to or who had won the respect of the country more than General Freyberg. (Applause.) "I think the least that can be done," added Mr. Fraser, "is to keep out of political controversy the leader of our Expeditionary Force. I think it was bad taste, just as it was entirely wrong from a political point of view."

Messrs. Appleton, Scrimgeour, Griffin, Dyer, and the others had done their worst and could do their worst, and when they had done they would still be defeated in Wellington Central. (Applause.)

After Mr. Fraser had answered a number of questions, a vote of confidence in him and the Labour Government was carried on a show of hands, there being no more than a half-dozen dissentients. Mr. K. Baxter presided.