Scrimgeour Brands Critics As Peeping Toms

Northern Advocate, 23 August 1943, Page 4

Scrimgeour Brands Critics As Peeping Toms

(P.A.) WELLINGTON. Sunday. A total of 3300 people in the Dc Luxe and Paramount Theatres tonight heard Mr. C. G. Scrimgeour. Independent candidate for the Wellington Central seat, reply to charges made against him in the House of Representatives by the Prime Minister (Mr. Fraser). Mr. Scrimgeour described the use of a record (taken at a social gathering) to discredit him as tantamount to a man peeping through the keyheue of another’s bathroom, and then charging him with indecent exposure. He challenged the Prime Minister to allow him the use of the radio to reply to the charges levelled in the House and broadcast. There was a good reception for Mr. Scrimgeour at both meetings. Mr. Scrimgeour reissued a challenge for a Royal Commission of inquiry, stating that if Mr. Fraser had all the evidence against him that he claimed, he would be the first to want to see him discredited by a tribunal, which would have the respect of all sections. It had been charged against him that he was concerned in a ‘radio racket." All arrangements for his appointment as head of the Commercial Broadcasting Service were made by Mr. Savage. Was Mr. Fraser new suggesting that Mr. Savage had been party to some corrupt agreement by which Mr. Scrimgeour would profit? The main charge aaginst him concerned the recording of a farewell gathering to a commercial broadcasting executive, continued Mr. Scrimgeour. The recording was made for the purpose of presenting to the wife of this executive, but he had given instructions after hearing it played over next morning that it should be destroyed. He was informed that this had been done. Instead, after his dismissal. it was handed over to the Minister for Broadcasting. Mr Fraser’s attack on him was caused by his refusal to forsake principles he believed in, even if allegiance to these principles meant placing a high salaried job in jeopardy.