MR HARGEST AT BLUFF.

Southland Times, Issue 22729, 4 November 1935, Page 3

MR HARGEST AT BLUFF.

To the Editor. Sir, —In your issue of Friday, Ist inst, appeared a correct report of Mr Hargest’s meeting at Bluff the previous evening and which stated that at the conclusion of his address he was, on the motion of Mr Lopdell, seconded by Captain Harbord, given a hearty vote of thanks for his address. Mr Lopdell in moving his motion of thanks said he would not add confidence as the best place to put that was in the ballot box. Anyone with any experience of gauging the feeling of a political meeting will draw his own conclusion as to why a motion of confidence was not added as well.

Mr Lopdell, I may say, presided at Mr Veitch’s meeting in the Bluff some little time ago and in the course of his introductory remarks said that “though we may not see eye to eye with him in his political opinions we certainly would in our desire to put the present Government out of office.” At Mr Hargest’s meeting at Woodend on the same night the gentleman who seconded the motion of thanks and confidence himself moved a motion of thanks and absolute confidence in Mr Niederer on the very next night. The best way to get on in the world is to agree with everyone. In Saturday’s Times appeared a report of Mr Hargest’s meetings of the previous night at Taramoa and Waianiwa. At the bottom of the column appeared this statement: — “The motion of thanks and confidence at the Bluff meeting on Thursday night was proposed by Mr J. Lopdell and seconded by Captain R. C. Harbord.” This kind of method of telling the people what you want them to believe is very ably described in "what is to my mind the finest work of Mr Upton Sinclair. “The Brass Check” a study of American journalism, the methods of which the Times bids fair to copy. —I am etc., DON McKENZIE. Bluff, November 2, 1935.