ON MISREPRESENTATION

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXI, 7 June 1938, Page 10

ON MISREPRESENTATION

CHALLENGES ISSUED The Government appears to work on the policy that if it has done something wrohg, the best way to get out of the difficulty is to accuse your opponents of doing exactly what you have been guilty of yourself, and, if you say it often enough, some people are bound to believe it. So the Labour Party's speakers appear to be riding to instructions, for all of them allege all sorts of misrepresentations against us. Only the other day. we had the Minister of Labour accusing us of forgery, slander and misrepresentation. Those of you who he. rd the Prime Minister speak from the* Wellington Town Hall will remember him saying that while I was in charge of the Post Office, the number of depositors fell by over 80.000. When I replied to Mr. Savage, I drew public attention to the fact that the Finance Act of 1932 made provision whereby 80,000 dead accounts —i.e. those that had not been operated on for 25 years, and were of an average value of under £1 each—were to be transferred t~ the Consolidated Fund. In my address, I referred to the Prime Minister’s r'atement as a gross misrepresentation of facts. Mr Nash was advertised to speak, and to reply to my speech, but. for obvious reasons, he did not even mention the Savings Bank figures. While the charge of misrepresentation I have levelled at the Prime Min ister stands unanswered, then it would be well for any Labour speaker to refrain from mentioi.ing the word misrepresentation in criticising the National Party. Then again ladies and gentlemen, you will recall that Mr Savage said:— “The registered number of unemployed in March 1936 was 54.500. In March, 1938. it was 6.695.” Again, I called public attention to the gross inaccuracy of Mr Savage’s figures, and pointed out that on page 804 of the Official Year Book the position was clearly set out, and disclosed the fact that in order to blacken his opponents as much as possible, he had deliberately included 22.510 men who were not unemployed at all, but who were in full time employment in industry and were not registered as unemployed. That challenge was published in almost every paper in New Zealand, Mr Savage and Mr Nash cannot have avoided knowing about it, yet neither of them has chosen to put the gross misrepresentation right, but prefer to knowingly allow a statement having no foundation in .fact, to remain. I again challenge both Mr Savage, or Mr Nash, to disprove my statement that the number of registered unemployed on 14th March, 1936. was not 54.529. .as stated by the Prime Minister but was, in actual fact, 32 019. I say again that people who are Ihemselvqs guilty of such gross misrepresentation as that to which I have just referred, should be the very last people to make allegations against other people, of misrepresentation.