ELECTION INCIDENT

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 244, 12 September 1933, Page 2

ELECTION INCIDENT

MR COATES AND INTERRUPTER. EXCITEAIENT AT CASHAIERE. CHRISTCHURCH, Sept. 11. An interjector, Air F. O. Shacklock, discovered he had gone a little too far when, at a political meeting at Cashmere to-night, he called the act-ing-Prime Minister, Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates, a liar. Air Coates, thoroughly exasperated after a long argument, leaped down from the platform, seized him not very tenderly, and told him to take back what ho had said. Air Shacklock was then led from the hall by the police. The beginnings of the disturbance came early in the meeting when, in reply to a statement by Air Coates that the Government had been given a mandate to extend the life of Parliament, Air Shacklock shouted that, the editor of the Press had said otherwise and that he preferred to believe the editor of the Press.

At the end of the acting-Prime Alinister’s address, when questions were called for, Air Shacklock rose with a typewritten paper, evidently bearing an editorial from the Press, walked to the front of the hall and attempted to hand it up to Air Coates. “You say you had a mandate and the editor of the Press says you did not,” said Air Shacklock. “Rea.d this to the meeting. I challenge you to read it.”

Air Coates waved him away. Air Shaddock: “You daren't read it. That’s it. You’re afraid to read it.” He held the paper up in the an 1 . “Would the audience like to hear it?” he asked.

“Come on, my man, go back to your seat and be quiet,” advised Air Coates, leaning down from the platform.

“You can’t answer it,” Air Shacklock retorted.

Air Coates said he could not accept a typewritten paper as representing the editorial opinions of the Press. He had expected to see a cutting. “The date’s on it,” shouted Air Shacklock. “That’s from the Press, I’ll swear.” Turning to the audience he added: “I’ll swear a declaration if you want me to.” Air Coates: I am telling this audience definitely and clearly that the country gave the Government a mandate at the last election. .In any case, what the editor of the Press says is beside the point. Air Shacklock: You’re shifting. You dare not read it. You are not man enough to read it. Air Coates (quietly): You’re talking to the wrong man there. The chairman (Mr W. W. Scarff) to Mr Shacklock: Sit down you’re making a nuisance of yourself. Air Coates: Can't you understand r I don’t care what the editor of the Press said. I say, and repeat, that we had a mandate at the last election.

Air Shacklock (shouting): You’re a liar.

Air Coates, provoked now beyond endurance, leaped down from the platform, walked down the aisle to where Air Shaddock was sitting, seized hold of him, and said: Will you take that back ?

There was high excitement in the hall. Air Shacklock was shouting incoherently when two constables intervened and lie was led from the hall while the audience loudly applauded Air Coates.

“If you think a public man is going to put up with epithets of that sort even in the Lyttelton electorate, then you are very much mistaken,” said Air Coates as he returned to the platform. “I say we had that mandate. I said it from the public platform that if we were returned to Parliament we would increase the life of Parliament another year. That is on record in the Press. I will not be called what that man called m<! | and I will never be called that inside this hall or outside it.” The chairman said he felt ashamed to be presiding at a meeting where such a disgraceful incident occurred. “The man that said that is a resident here, and he should have had more sense,” said Air Scarff. “I have presided at meetings here for the past three or four ,years, and he has always been an interjecting nuisance.” The incident then closed with rounds of applause for Air Coates.