Press Gets Another Drubbing

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 182, 4 August 1938, Page 7

Press Gets Another Drubbing

Mr. Hodgens Takes Up the Cudgels “DIRTY ELECTION FIGHT,” SAYS MR, HULTQUIST Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, Last Night. Mr. J. Hodgens (Palmerston), during the course of the Budget debate ia the House of Representatives yesterday afternoon, stated that honourable Members from within the House and gentlemen who aspired to come into it had stated that the Labour Ministers were too thin-skinned in connection with the Press criticism which they received. All that the Cabinet Ministers and tho Government wanted was some measure of justice, he stated. He went on to refer to the demand made by the New Zealand Law Society to the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association in 1931, and stated that for many years the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association had published the names of counsel in Court proceedings, but because the Law Society and the Public Trustee had come to an arrangement in connection with tho matter of advertising space, the Newspaper Proprietors' Association had determined that it would not publish the names of counsel. He quoted from the Law Journal comments made by Mr. Justice Blair in reference to the position as it concerned the defence of a prisoner in a murder trial, and also quoted remarks on the subject made by the present Chief •Justice, Sir Michael Myers. Welcome to Premier Ignored.

Every member of the House, he said, Would appreciate why he was making these remarks. It was because the magnificent welcome which had been accorded the Prime Minister in Christchurch last Saturday had been ignored by Wellington papers. He contended that this was a ramp by the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association, and his purpose was to show that the Ministers of the Crown, oven to the Prime Minister, were not exempt from the methods of that association.

Mr. Hodgens, replying to Hon. J. G. Cobbe’s remark regarding the report of the directors of the Reserve Bank, stated that the report meant nothing other than that those responsible for it had taken it on themselves to say that, because they happened to be trained in orthodox banking, they should advise the Government on matters pertaining to political economy. A very successful business friend of his in Palmerston North had once said: “If you want to go broke, then follow the advice of your banker or your solicitor.” Ho agreed with his friend entirely. He added that he would rather rely on the advice of tho Prime Minister (Hon. M. J. Savage) than on those gentlemen whose life had been spent in banking for the purpose of making profits and not for the purpose of giving first consideration to human welfare. Press’s “Bitter Campaign.” Mr. A. G. Hultquist (Bay of Plenty) also referred to tho criticism by the Press of the Government’s policy and said that Mr. Seddon’s Government had been subjected to tho same vituperative attacks. Already, he stated, arrangements had been mado with the Tress of this country to make a bitter campaign of the coming elections. Every effort by the Government members to keep tho campaign clean would be defeated and the Press would try to make it a dirty fight. It would then blame the Government candidates for a certain percentage of the dirt. They were doing it in every electorate even now, he said. He went on to deal with the planks of Labour’s platform which had been carried out by the Government up to the present. The debate was interrupted by tea adjournment at 5.30 p.m.