CALLED A LIAR

Grey River Argus, 27 May 1938, Page 9

CALLED A LIAR

HON. H. T. ARMSTRONG

Incident at Public Meeting

LPer Press Association.J WELLINGTON, May 26

A declaration by an interjector that the Minister of Labour, Hon. H. T. Armstrong, as a “liar,” and a retort by Mr Armstrong that he would poke the interjector in the nose, led to a brief incident at a meeting addressed by the Minister at St. Anne's Hall, Northland, to-night. At the time the Minister was comparing the treatment of the pensioners under the Labour Government with that they' received under the Coalition Government. He said that nobody in New Zealand had a reduction m their ’pensions under the present Government.

The interjector here said: “There are. I know it. You know that is a lie!”

Mr Armstrong: “Don’t you tell me that, or I will poke you in the nose!” The interjector: "You’re a liar.” Mr Armstrong: “I don’t stand for that sort of thing from a snipe like you! I believe in straighttalk.” The interjector then protested that he had not called the Minister a liar "I never made such a remark,” he said.

The chairman, Mr H. M. Campbell: ’’Order, please!” Several members of the audience, near the interjector urged him to apologise. Mr Armstrong: “The interjector deserves our sympathy, and not our condemnation. Everybody is not responsible for what they say. We have had a very nice meeting here tonight, and we are not going to have it disturbed by one hooligan. I can stand any amount of criticism. I have been getting it all my life. But don't tell me that I lie! I don’t do that. I may be mistaken in some of my conclusions.”

The interjector then rose and apologised. He said, however, that he knew of soldiers' widows in Wellington who were not getting a pension. The Minister said that they were. At the close of the meeting, the incident was again referred to by Mr Armstrong. "I am very sorry for the incident to-night,” he said. “I don’t object to being told I am incorrect, but when a man says I lie, he will get it back. If somebody says I lie, that hurts! I don’t think the chap meant it in that way!” Another interjector: “He said it!”

Mr Armstrong: “I am very sorry for the retort on my part.” The Minister, who dealt largely with the Government’s handling of the unemployment problem, was accorded a vote of thanks and of confidence, without dissent. The hall was packed to the doors.