SHABBY TREATMENT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 78, 26 June 1943, Page 4

SHABBY TREATMENT

MR LANGSTONE’S COMPLAINT VICTIM OF “PEARL lIAKROI R ATTACK LEFT LIKE MAHOMET’S COFFIN ‘From Our Parliamentary Reporter Wellington. June 25. A complaint about the way he had been treated by the Prime Minutei over the question of {he appointment of a New Zealand Minister to Wash ington was made in the House of Re presentatives yesterday afternoon by Mr F. Langstone <Govt„ Waimarino 1 who was formerly High Commissionei in Ottawa. “If the Prime Minister wanted to pass a vote of no confidence in me it would have been decent of him to cio so in front of my face instead of getting me 10,000 miles away and putting th* skids under me then, because that is exactly what happened,” said Mr Lang stone, who added that he had been a member of the Cabinet and was a re preventative of the people, but he wa.treated shabbily like a schoolboy while he was 10,000 miles away. Mr Langstone said he was not cotr. plaining about Ottawa. He had resigned from the position because he had told the Prime Minister certain things. The question of the appointment to Wash ington had nothing to do with Ottawa He had been double crossed and the victim of a “Pearl Harbour” attack At the Speaker’s direction Mr Langstone withdrew the term “double cross.” Mr Langstone said that he would never forget and never forgive after what happened to him. “If the Prime Minister thinks he can play me for a sucker he is making the greatest mistake he has made in h, life, because he simply can’t get away with that sort of thing.” He did not mind what action the Prime Minister took towards him as long as what was done was with his fuff knowledge "When the Minister of Finance came to Washington I was left like Mahomet’s coffin between heaven and earth.” At this stage Mr Langstone was in terrupted by the Speaker as his time was exhausted.