Speaker Compelled To Leave Platform

Northern Advocate, 18 March 1948, Page 5

Speaker Compelled To Leave Platform

NEW PLYMOUTH, Thu. (P.A.).—A disturbance, the result of which was that the speaker left the platform before the meeting had ended . occurred in the Regent Theatre, New Plymouth, last night. The St Patrick’s night speaker was the Rev. St Clair, Taylor, DD, FRGS, MJI, director of the national union of Protestants, England, who, when interviewed after the meeting, said he had been subjected to “organised cat-calls and rowdyism.”

“It was a great pity that the opposition was organised to spoil the meeting,” declared Mr Taylor. “I was unable to answer their questions and was unable to go on with the meeting as was originally intended.”

After he had been speaking for an hour and a half the opposition became turbulent, and although the chairman appealed repeatedly for order, the opposition continued to bui’st out to such an extent that he felt it would be unwise to carry the meeting any further.

An attempt to put a critical resolution to the meeting was unsuccessful.

The mover said that, besides critics of the speaker, there was a third section in the hall who were “heckling the hecklers.”

They were Communists, he said. Subsequently an arrest was made. The charge is to be heard in the police court this afternoon.