A STRONG PROTEST

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 138, 13 May 1941, Page 5

A STRONG PROTEST

POLITICAL PROPAGANDA

(Pro»s -As.,n.) J.\ VEUCAKGILL, .VJay 12. A telegram .protest.ng against what he calls a iiagrant breach or the agreement between the Government and Opposition parties was sent to-day to the Minister of Finance (Hon. AY. Nash) by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr iS. G. Holland) who is at present in Invercargill. The agreement was “to minimise public plattorm political propaganda,” and Mr Holland contends that recent statements by the Ministers of Health and Industries and Commerce have broken the terms of this agreement. The full text of Air Holland's telegram is a 6 follows: —“With a desire to promote national unity, 1 made an agreement with the Prime Minister to minimise public platform political propaganda for a certain period, and I have strictly observed that arrangement. declining to permit any publicity for my speeches at party meetings. Last week newspapers gave full publicity to a violent attack on the medical profession by the Alinister of Health, and later the Alinister of Industries and Commerce issued a purely propaganda statement about industrial licensing. I regard these published statements as a flagrant breach of tlie arrangement agreed to by the Prime Alinister. and unless I receive an assurance that such breaches of tlie arrangement will not be repeated, 1 shall understand that the Government does not intend to honour the arrangement and shall act accordingly. The public is heartily sick of this constant persecution of doctors, specially when so manv of them are sacrificing so much to tend our sick and wounded countrymen on foreign battlefields, and more especially seeing that doctors have complied with every requirement of law. Please let mp have a prompt reply whether similar publicity to Alinisterial propaganda is to be permitted in future.”