NOISY SCENES

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17472, 22 January 1931, Page 5

NOISY SCENES

WELLINGTON UNEMPLOYED WHY LABOR SUPPORTS UNITED EXTREME AND SANER ELEMENTS BREAK (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, last night. Noisy scenes wore witnessed in the TradßS Hull this afternoon when the most, disorderly meeting of unemployed yet. held in Wellington struggled through two hours of uproar, boohs, eat calls,- and personal abuse. It was the first open cleavage between the extreme and the saner elements of the Labor movement that has occurred, and ahout 200 men of the 600 present left the hall in a body as a protest against the ejection by the police of one of their number. After creating a noise outside, they returned through another door and the meeting eventually broke up noisily after the chairman had declared carried a motion to the effect that the meeting heartily agreed to cooperate with the unemployed committee of the Trades and Labor Council _ to arrange for a deputation to the Prime Minister to deal with the unemployment situation. Mr. P. Eraser, M.P., was in the chair and he warned ititerjeetors that those causing trouble would be removed. In his address, Mr. R. Semple, M.P.. said that/ the Labor Party had done its best to solve the unemployment problem. Before the Labor Party had agreed to vote out the Reform Party from office it had accepted a pledge from the leader of the United Party that the relief rate of pay should be raised to the trade union standard. Mr. Coates, leader of the Reform Party, had persistently staled on the floor of the House that the rate of wages would be reduced under Reform's regime to 9s and 12s a day. Labor had had to choose between the two parties. He instanced the efforts made by Labor men to relieve distress, and said, the Unemployment Board was doing all it could. Interjections and noises followed this, culminating in the ejection of one of the malcontents and the" walking out of the others.