LEADERSHIP LACKING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26027, 15 December 1945, Page 6

LEADERSHIP LACKING

MR MULHOLLAND CRITICISED (P.A.) WANGANUI, Dec. 14. “If the general public of New Zealand has been just as curious as the farmer as to what the farmers’ organisations are or were going to .be capable of doing to combat the recent Government legislation, they will have found the answer in the public attack made with such evident spleen by the the Dominion president of the Farmers’ Union, Mr W. W. Mulholiand, on Mr R. G. Buckleton, of Wellington,” said Mr R. O. Montgomerie, of'Kakatahi, a member of the union’s Action Committee, which sat in Weilington recently and discussed the probable campaign to combat the legislation, considered inimical to farmers’ interests., “Mr Buckleton’s only crime Is that he and his province made up their minds to be up and doing to protect their basic rights,”' Mr Montgomerie continued. “In contrast to the laudable activity of the Hut-Makara province, Mr Mulholiand seems to sit in Canterbury nad twiddle his thumbs. Those of us who were at the Action Committee meeting in Wellington on October 29 —and Mr Buckleton is a member of this committee —and again at the resumed annual conference on November 2 are fully aware that from one end of New Zealand to the other the farmers are demanding that their organisations should wake up and act. What Mr Buckleton has done in Wellington should already have been taken in hand throughout New Zealand by none other than the Dominion president. Mr Buckleton acts while Mr Mulholiand sits and twiddles his thumbs. “If Mr Mulholiand had read and understood even one single telegram of the hundreds that have reached his province in recent weeks,” Mr Montgomerie added, “he would already have given such a clear and unmistakable lead to the organisation of which he is the head that Mr Buckleton and everyone else in the ofganisation would have known exactly what was required of them. If Mr Buckleton and others who feel an equal responsibility in this matter find that they must indulge in un-co-ordinated activity, then the person to get the full blast of the blame is the person who holds the highest office in that organisation and refuses either to act or give a lead.”