NOT GUILTY OF ANY INTERFERENCE

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 40, 22 February 1929, Page 5

NOT GUILTY OF ANY INTERFERENCE

RECENT RAILWAY mountain excursion.

STATEMENT BY MAYOR OF NEW PLYMOUTH.

Thai no organised body in New Plymouth d-d. anything to i uteri ere with the arrangements made lor the recent railway excursion to Mount Fgmont via Stratlord, is the decided opinion of -Mr H. V. S. Griffiths, Mayor of New Plymouth, who was in Stratford yesterday, and who made a statement on thc matter to a ‘lost

representative', “A,s Jar as New Plymouth having anything to do with interference with the arrangements is concerned,” said Air Griffiths, “Stratford people should get that out of their heads at once. You can take it from me that New Plymouth, people did nothing to interfere with the arrangements in any shape or form. Personally, T did nothing at all in the matter. As regards the tourists from AVellington, they came to the town and left again before I knew anything about them. Hie first I heard of them was when 1 read about them in the newspaper next morning. Could there he any movement on the part of New Plymouth and wo not know about it- From inquiries 1 have made it appears that nobody in New Plymouth knew the tourists were coming "until within an hour of the arrival of the train. Mr Val Duff, secretary of the Chamber of Commerce, on returning to his ■beach bottage after playing cricket on the Saturday afternoon, found a telegram telling him that the tourists were coining, and ho rushed back to town to make what arrangements were possible. So far as I know thc Tourist and Expansion League took no action in the matter, if they had been doing anything it would bo very discourteous on their part to omit to notify the Mayor.”