POLITICAL QUARREL.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 15 July 1927, Page 7

POLITICAL QUARREL.

WEALTHY LABOUR MAN. LO'riES BIG LIBEL ACTION. BY CABLE—PEESS ASSOCIATION—COP Y RIGHT. LONDON, July 12. Air. Yv heat ley, Labour -\I.P., losa a six-day -action ni jxennburgh, against John Maurice Reid All her and Alexander B. Anderson, from each of whom ho claimed £3ooo damages, alleging that a letter Miller, his Conservative opponent, wrote to Anderson $ newspaper, the jfcluste.ru Argus, contained a slander. The jury by a nine tu three majority favoured defendants on the first issue, whether the letter falsely represented Wheatley as a dishonourable, crooked, mean character ;and on the second issue, whether Wheatley had no regard for an oath, the jury unanimously favoured defendants. The case arose out of Wheatley’s oiler to pay £I6OO to anybody proving the truth Q-x -rumours which he contended ha.d reduced his Parliamentary majority. Aliller asked Wheatley for an opportunity in the courts of exposing t-iie political pretences- off a wealthy man who was pretending to suppo.rt the abolition qf capitalism. Bailie W. Smith, giving evidence, alleged that Wheatley, on one occasion in 1919, failed to honour the loyal toast at a Glasgow -Corporation luncheon, and had spoken deroga-torily of the Iloyal family. Aliller, giving evidence, -said that Wheatley, despite strong prohibition professions, held £ll, QUO worth of shares in a publishing company, his eo-di. recto ns being men prominent in the liquor trade. He contended that Wheatley’s speeches advocated revolution in its proper sense. Lord Murray, summing up, said it. was a political dispute in which great lie-at had been displayed by hot-li sidesAliller could not -be accused of lack of courage in his -reply, which Wheatley refused to publish, considering it contained a personal libel. He indulged in a. bard-intting -reply which must be read in the -light of a challenge.