“A NICE THING”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27386, 11 May 1950, Page 6

“A NICE THING”

Challenge To Mr Fraser SECRET PACT ISSUE PA AUCKLAND, May 10. “ It would be a nice thing for Mr Holland to tell the House that I asked the watersiders to hold a stop-work meeting to hear me,” said the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Fraser, at the annual conference of the Labour Party today. Mr Fraser said he had seen in a newspaper that morning that he and others had been challenged to come and defend something he was alleged to have said at the Federation of Labour’s conference concerning a •secret pact’ with the Nationalists. “It is the height of nonsense,” Mr Fraser said. “ I never mentioned a secret pact and I thought it was a fair address. All that I said there concerned the waterside workers’ relationship with Mr Sullivan, the Minister of Labour, but Mr Barnes said in a published statement that the watersiders were receiving more co-opera-tion from Mr Sullivan than they had received from Mr McLagan. “ If they are getting that, they must be giving too, because I saw their cooperation with the last administration. I believe in turning the other cheek once, but I cannot go on doing it all the time.”