PICTURE EXHIBITORS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25276, 13 July 1943, Page 4

PICTURE EXHIBITORS

ALLEGATIONS RESENTED SPECIAL INQUIRY SOUGHT (P.A.) WELLINGTON, July 12. At a combined meeting of the Dominion Council.of the Dominion Executive of the New Zealand Motion Picture Exhibitors’ Association exception was taken to statements by Mr A. S. Richards and Mr J. Robertson, M.P.'s, in Parliament when reporting on the Greenfield petition. Some of the state, ments were considered to be so unfair and unfounded that the meeting decided 16 ask the Government for a special inquiry. The following resolution was carried unanimously by the meeting—“ That the New Zealand Motion Picture Exhibitors’ Association strongly resents the. allegations reflecting on the motion picture industry made by Mr Richards and Mr Robertson in Parliament, and calls on the Government to arrange immediately for an inquiry to be conducted by a Supreme Court judge or a stipendiary magistrate.” It was reported that the mobile kinema unit which had been constructed in America for use with the 2nd N.Z.E.F. had been shipped from America to the Middle East and should now be with the New Zealand Division. The estimated cost of tne unit was approximately £1750, and this sum had been subscribed by the motion picture exhibitors throughout the Dominion. The unit was being handed over to the National Patriotic Fund Board.

The substance of the statements made in the House was that monopolistic control was being exercised to the detriment of the smaller concerns and also to the disadvantage of the picture-going public.