LABOUR LEADER STRONGLY DENIES TYRANNICAL AIMS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22971, 14 June 1949, Page 8

LABOUR LEADER STRONGLY DENIES TYRANNICAL AIMS

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, June 14. There was never a more miserable electoral trick than that used by the Nationalists in the publication entitled "Russianisina New Zealand," whicn they had distributed among householders. stated the Prime Minister, Mr. P. Fraser, at a Labour Party meeting at Brooklyn last night. He added that this pamphlet tried to make oeople’s flesh creep with threats that their homes might be seized, their ousinesses confiscated and their premises invaded and that they would be subject to injury without compensation. Peoo’e were not so easily duped, or deceived, he sa ! d All this scare-mong-erins was achieved by publishing a portion of the text of the first draft of the Supply Regulations Bill, 1947, which never became law.

Supply Regulations

It was true that the Opposition at the time fastened on these clauses in the endeavour to show that the Government wished to assume tyrannical powers, but the fact was that this bill simply embodied certain parts of the supply regulations which had existed since 1940 These powers had never been exercised in an arbitrary fashion and they provided for full compensation in any action which had to be taken under them for the furtherance of the country's war effort It had not been the Government’s desire to hold on to any more wartime powers than were necessarv for the wellbeing of the community in the post-war period. The Nationalists now hypothetically issued a pamphlet built on completely fantastic misconstructions on the language of clauses which the Government withdrew without hesitation because they were unnecessary.