ALLEGED ASPERSION

Evening Star, Issue 24915, 13 July 1943, Page 5

ALLEGED ASPERSION

MOVIE EXHIBITORS DEMAND INQUIRY (P.A.) WELLINGTON, July 12. At a combined meeting of the Dominion Council of the Dominion Executive of the New Zealand Motion Picture Exhibitors' Association exception was taken to statements by Mr A. S. Richards and Mr J ( . Robertson, M.P.s, in Parliament When reporting on the Greenfield petition. Some of the statements were considered to be bo unfair and unfounded that the meeting decided to ask the Government for a special inquiry. The following resolution was carried unanimously by the meeting:—" That the New Zealand Motion: Picture Exhibitors' Association strongly resents the allegations reflecting on the motion picture industrymade by Mr Richards and Mr Robertson in Parliament, and calls on the Government to arrange immediately for an inquiry to be conducted by a Supreme Court.judge or a stipendiary magistrate." It- was reported that the mobile cinema unit which had been constructed in America for use with the 2nd N.Z.E.F. had been shipped from America to the Middle East and should now be with the New Zealand Division. The estimated cost of the unit was approximately £1,750, and this sum had been subscribed by the motion picture exhibitors throughout the Dominion.. The unit was being handed over to the National Patriotic Fund Board. [The substance of the statements made in the House was that monopolistic control was being exercised to the detriment of the smaller concerns and also to the disadvantage of the picture-going public]