Mr Scrimgeour on the Platform

Northern Advocate, 29 September 1938, Page 6

Mr Scrimgeour on the Platform

THE news that Mr C. G. Scrimgeour, Controller of Commercial Broadcasting, has had the great misfortune to be heckled at a political meeting at Tirau, will possibly distress Mr Serimgeour’s ardent sympathisers and admirers, but others, even including a great many supporters of the Government, will merely find it amusing. . . Those Who have listened to Mr Scrimgeour s Sunday night sessions lately will have heard, amid liis thinly-veiled political propaganda, attempts to disclaim any political partisanship. At Tirau, however, he discarded this pose by endeavouring to speak on behalf of the Labour member for Rotorua, Mr A. P. Moncur. It is significant that while Mr Moncur himself received quite a reasonable hearing, Mr Scrimgeour did not get a hearing at all, and had to surrender as gracefully as he could after a quarter of an hour’s futile effort to make himself heard. Thus, for perhaps the first time since his emergence as New Zealand’s Father Coughlin, Mr Scrimgeour lias come face to face with sharp realities. Speaking over the air he has things all his own way. He has no dissentient protesting voices. No one can disconcert or silence him. On the public platform, it is different, painfully different.