HALF-TRUTHS AND MISSTATEMENTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22719, 4 November 1935, Page 10

HALF-TRUTHS AND MISSTATEMENTS

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —There is an excellent maritime custom which demands that when the skipper gives an order from the bridge it is repeated by the members of the crew to whom it is addresssed—an excellent custom for the mercantile ..marine, no doubt, but apt to be misleading when applied to politics, as Captain Fraser has probably already learned. In his speech at Outram, Captain Fraser started off by rating the Government for the unemployment problem. He quoted the Minister concerned as saying: u I cannot solve this problem. The board cannot solve this problem. The Government cannot solve it.” The Minister should have gone further, and said, “ The world cannot solve it.” But the Democrats say that the problem could and would be solved! If these supermen have had this definite plan up their sleeves all the time, have they not been heartless in allowing unemployment. with all its attendant evils, to continue, deliberately withholding the cure to use as election bait? Again, Captain Fraser repeated the statement that _ the Government had injured the Dominion’s good name in the British market. This is not true and is not borne out by the facts. And on the statement that the party was condemned by one of its own Ministers (Mr Downie Stewart), I suggest that Captain Fraser has only uttered a half-truth and has not told his hearers the specific nature of Mr Stewart’s disagreement. There are rocks ahead for Captain Fraser, and I think his party can write him off as a total loss.—l am, etc., True Bill.