GREY LYNN ELECTORATE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15770, 19 November 1914, Page 4

GREY LYNN ELECTORATE

ADDRESS BY MR. McLEAN. I HELPING THE WORKER. CONFIDENCE VOTE CARRIED. A large audience greeted Mr. Murdoch McLean, official Government candidate for Grey Lynn, at the Church of Christ Hall, PoiiMiiiby Road, last evening. Mr. George 11. Woods, president of the Auckland Waterside Workers' I'nion, occupied the chair. The candidate's address was on the lines of his previous speeches. lit* promised, if relumed, to do all tie could to assist the worker, and said that the Massey Government had also shown itself a friend to the worker by pln< ins; on the Statute Book pood Labour legislation. On the subject of a local navy, lie remarked that when tiie Hon. .lames Allen, Minister for Defence, tame hack from Home, the idea of a local navy was " pooh-poohed," and the Minister's offer of an expeditionary force raised a storm of opposition from the opponents of the Government. Time had passed, and New Zealand had had to depend on the Australian Navy to protect her interests, when two or three Bristol cruisers would have made that assistance unnecessary. The local navy idea was scouted no longer, and no one dared dispm.ige the Minister's actions ill regard to the expeditionary force. (Applause.) Whoever was to blame for the Huntly disaster, continued Mr. McLean, the Government was not. The candidate answered numerous questions, including one as to whether he was in favour of a State coal mine tor Auckland. This he answered in the affirmative.

At the conclusion of the meeting a vote of thanks and confidence was proposed, and an amendment of thanks only, with no confidence in either the candidate or the Government, was also proposed. The amendment was lost by an overwhelming majority and the motion declared carried.