“N.Z. HAS ANSWER TO INSULT”

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 12 June 1945, Page 5

“N.Z. HAS ANSWER TO INSULT”

HEADLINE IN ENGLISH PAPER MR CHURCHILL’S ELECTION SPEECH London, June 10. “New Zealand has answer to insult,” said a headline in the “Daily Herald” on June 8. It was above an article cabled by its Wellington correspondent, stating: “Ranging from astonishment to anger, New Zealand Labour views on Mr Churchill’s speech condemn its ill-tempered and bad-mannered tone.” The article went on to say that the New Zealand Labour Party and Federation of Labour were quick to demonstrate their resentment. They hurriedly conferred and issued a statement referring to Mr Churchill’s remark that: “A free Parliament is odious to the Socialist doctrine.” “As an insult to the parliamentary institution as it exists in New Zealand as well as Australia, also a grave reflection on the mentality of democratic Australia and New Zealand.” The “Sunday Times” commented on this article. In an editorial it states: “The overseas Dominions of the British Commonwealth are in the fullest sense of the term self-governing States. They freely give allegiance to the King, but they are in no way dependent on the Government in London and they control their own affairs as completely as we control ours. Mutual relations are governed by an unwritten code, one article of which is that no member of the Commonwealth interferes with the internal affairs of any other member. “Strict regard to this is so much in the common interest that we regretfully call attention to a very rare case of is non -observance, ’ says the “Sunday Times” and refers to a report in the “Daily Herald” of an attack on Mr Churchill by the New Zealand Labour Party and the Federation of Labour. “Their complaint was that in his election broadcast last week he attacked the Labour movement and they replied by attacking him. They have been misinformed. Mr Churchill was not concerned with the Labour movements, but only with the policy which a political party in this country is putting to the test and trial in the general election.” REMINDER TO “NEW ZEALAND FRIENDS” The “Daily Herald correspondent explains that the protest was the result of a hurried conference. If there le«s hurry there would perhaps have been less misunderstanding. “But this is no case for recrimination.” he says. “We merely remind our New Zealand friends that our general ejection is an exclusively United Kingdom affair.”—P.A. Special Correspondent.