N.Z. LABOUR

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 136, 11 June 1945, Page 6

N.Z. LABOUR

ATTACK ON CHURCHILL

BREACH OF EMPIRE CODE

(SDecial P.A. Correspondent i , LONDON, June 10

Rec. noon

"New Zealand has Answer to Insult," said a headline in the "Daily Herald" on June 8. It was over an article cabled by its Wellington correspondent stating: "Ranging: from astonishment to anger, New Zealand Labour views on Mr. Churchill's speech condemn its illtempered, bad-mannered tone."

The article went on to say that the New Zealand Labour Party and Federation of Labour were quick to demonstrate their resentment. They hurriedly conferred and issued a statement referring to Mr. Churchill's remark that "a free Parliament is odious to the Socialist doctrinaire" as "an insult to the Parliamentary institution as it exists in New Zealand and Australia, and also a grave reflection on the mentality of democratic Australia and New Zealand." Now the "Sunday Times" has commented on this article in an editorial. It states that the overseas Dominions of the British Commonwealth are, in the fullest sense of the term, selfgoverning States. They freely give allegiance to the King, "but they are in no way dependent on the Government in London, and they control their own affairs as completely as we control ours. "Mutual relations are governed by an unwritten code, one article of which is that no member of the Commonwealth interferes with the internal affairs of any other member. BROKEN BY NEW ZEALAND. "Strict regard to this is so much in the common interest that we regretfully call attention to a very rare case of its non-observance," says the "Sunrday Times." It refers to the report in the "Daily Herald" of the attack on Mr. Churchill by the New Zealand Labour Party and the Federation of Labour. "Their complaint was that, in his election broadcast last week, he attacked 'the Labour movement' and they replied by attacking him. They have been misinformed.

"Mr. Churchill was not concerned with 'Labour movements,' but only with the policy which a political party in this country is putting to the test and trial in the General Election.

"The 'Daily Herald' correspondent explains that the protest was the result of a hurried conference. If there had been less hurry there would, perhaps, have been less misunderstanding.

"But this is no case for recrimination. We merely remind our New Zealand friends that our General Election is exclusively a United Kingdom affair."