DEBATE PROPOSED.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18643, 12 August 1930, Page 2

DEBATE PROPOSED.

INVERCARGILL BY-ELECTION DOINGS. A suggestion that the United and Reform candidates should meet in public debate on the taxation and unemployment questions was mooted at Mr Hargest's meeting on Saturday evening. When question time arrived the chairman read the following question which had been handed in to the meeting: “Would the candidate be prepared to debate on the public platform with Mr V. Ward the taxation and unemployment questions?” A footnote to the question stated that the same question would be asked the Government candidate at his meeting in the Town Hall that evening. Mr Hargest was not at all hesitant in replying. “This is a staggerer,” he said, “but certainly I will meet Mr Ward in debate on these questions. I am prepared to meet him on the public platform at any time, preferably before Wednesday.” This reply was greeted with vociferous applause. Mr Ward made the following statement in an interview: “I have no intention of meeting Mr Hargest on the platform in debate. The suggestion reminds one of the passage from the classics of which the Anglicised version is: ‘I fear the Greeks when they bring gifts.’ I cannot imagine that the idea was conceived for the purpose of assisting my candidature. This is not a test of oratory; it is a political election, and I feel that with my modest qualifications and a good cause to uphold, I may be of some use to the country. That is why I consented to stand for the Invercargill seat.”