MINISTER INCENSED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23511, 27 May 1938, Page 10

MINISTER INCENSED

A REFLECTION RESENTED INCIDENT AT MEETING INTERJECTOR APOLOGISES (Per United Press Association) WELLINGTON, May 26. A blunt allegation by an interjector that the Minister of Labour (Mr H. T. Armstrong) was making an erroneous statement and a retort by Mr Armstrong that he would "poke” the interjector on the nose led to a brief incident at a meeting addressed by the Minister at St. Anne’s Hall. Northland, to-night. At the time the Minister was comparing the treatment of pensioners under the Labour Government with that under the Coalition Government and said that no one in New Zealand had had a reduction in pensions under the present Government. An interjector: There are. I know it. You know that is incorrect! Mr Armstrong: Don’t you tell me that or I will poke you on the nose. The interjector again declared that the Minister was wrong in his statement. Mr Armstrong; I don’t stand that sort of thing from a snipe like you. I believe in straight talk. The interjector protested he had not called the Minister a liar. “ I never made such a remark,” he said. The chairman (Mr H. M. Campbell) : Order, please. Several members of the audience near the interjector urged him to apologise.

Mr Armstrong; The interjector deserves our sympathy and not our condemnation. Everybody is not responsible for what he says. We have had a very nice meeting here to-night and we are not going to have it disturbed by one hooligan. I can stand any amount of criticism. I have been getting it all my life but don’t tell me that I lie. I don’t do that. I may be mistaken in some of my conclusions.

The interjector then rose and apologised. He said, however, that he knew soldiers’ widows in Wellington who were not getting the pension.

The Minister said they were.

At the close of the meeting the incident was again referred to by Mr Armstrong. “I am very sorrv for the incident to-night,” he said. “I don’t object to being told I am incorrect, but when a man says I lie he will get it back. If somebody says I lie, that hurts. I don t think the chap meant it in that way. I am very sorry for the retort on my part.”

The Minister, who dealt largely with the Government’s handling of the unemployment problem, was accorded a vote of thanks and confidence without dissent. The hall was packed to the doors.