LABOUR M.P. RESIGNS

Horowhenua Chronicle, 27 September 1927, Page 6

LABOUR M.P. RESIGNS

FOLLOWING ON FAILURE OF LIBEL SUIT.

SAYS WILL NOT ALTER DECISION (Eeceived Monday, 7 p.m.) LONDON, Sept. 24. The " Daily Express " states that Mr. J. Wheatley placed his resignation from the House of Commons in the hands of the local Labour Party at a meeting yesterday, refusing to alter his decision, which is attributed to his unsuccessful libel action.

At Edinburgh in July last, Mr. J. Wheatley, the Labour M.P., lost a sixday action against John Maurice Reid Miller and Alexander B. Anderson, from whom he claimed £3OOO damages apiece, alleging that a letter Miller (his Conservative opponent) wrote to Anderson's newspaper, the "Eastern Argus," contained slander.

The case arose through Wheatley 'a offer to pay £IOOO to anybody who proved the truth of rumours which contended that he had produced a Parliamentary majority. Miller asked Wheatley for an opportunity in the courts ■of exposing the political pretences of a ■wealthy man who was pretending to support the abolition of capitalism. Bail lie W. Smith, in giving evidence, alleged that Wheatley on one occasion, in 1919, had failed to honour the Royal toast at a Glasgow Corporation lunchdon, also that he had spoken dcrogatorily of the Royal Fa.mily. Miller, in evidence, said that Wheatley, despite his strong prohibition professions, held £II,OOO worth of shares in a publishing company, his co-directors of which were men prominent in the liquor trade. He contended that Wheatley's speeches advocated revolution in the proper sense.

Lord Murray, in summing up, said that it was a political dispute in which great heat had been displayed by both sides. ■ Wheatley's challenge contained the terms " traducers ' and " unscrupulous, lying campaign of slander." Miller could not bo accused of lack of courage in his reply, which Wheatley refused-to publish, considering that it contained a personal libel. He indulged in a hard-hitting reply, which must be road in the light of a challenge. The jury, by a majority of nine to three, found in favour of the defendants on the first issue as to whether the letter falsely represented Wheatley as a dishonourable, crooked, and mean "character, and unanimously for the defendants on the second issue, as to whether Wheatley had no regard for the sanc : tity of an oath.