FARMERS AND POLITICS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVIII, Issue 238, 5 September 1928, Page 11

FARMERS AND POLITICS.

Per Press Association

NEW PLYMOUTH, Sept. 4. A reply to tho attack by Hon. A. D. AlcLeod on tho politics of Air AV. J. Poison and on the Country Party was made by Air Poison in the course of an address to tho electors at Okau yesterday. Air Poison referred with amusement to the Alinister’s “misrepresentation of fact” in his speech at AVaitoa. It was, he said, Air AleLood’s usual method of reply.. It was so well known that he (Air Poison) had kept the Farmers’ Union out of politics and that ho was not a member of the. Country Party that it was not necessary to answer Air AlcLeod on that point. Tho fact was that the Alinister’s anger was due to the fact that the speaker was opposed to Reform and apparently only Farmers’ Union presidents who like Air J. Bitchener, M.P., supported Reform, should be allowed to voice their political opinions. The allegation that he (Air Poison) had used the organisation of the Farmers’ Union or allowed it to be used for political purposes was grotesquely untrue. The fact was that Mr McLeod had been thwarted in his cndeavours to exploit the Farmers’ Union for political pmrposes, hence his rage.