PRESS REPORTS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20667, 4 March 1937, Page 6

PRESS REPORTS

MR SEMPLE PROTESTS EXAGGERATION ALLEGED By Telegraph —Press Association WELLINGTON, arch 3. A protest against some of the Press statements about his activities in the South Island is made by the Hon. R. Semple. He denies being towed into Ashburton by an old model rattletrap of the class he condemned. He was towed by a lorry driver good enough to go some miles out of his way to help him. The lorry could not by any stretch of imagination be classed as Junk. He denies the wheelbarrow story. He says it was an accident; he did hot see it. He heard afterwards that it had been placed in front of the tractor as a Joke. It had no value. It was grossly unfair that such statements should be published. They were a tissue of lies and unworthy of modern journalism. In an Interview, Mr C. S. Edwards, president of the Bank Officers’ Guild, said the Guild had no desire to enter into a newspaper controversy with the Hon. R. Semple. It realised that such a controversy would lead nowhere. The facts were that the Guild took exception to the reported statement regarding bankers made by Mr Semple at Cromwell Gorge and uttered a protest against what it considered was intemperate language. Mr Semple claimed that he was the best Judge as to what language he should use that was worthy of himself as a Minister of the Crown.

“We do not adhiit that he is the best judge,” said Mr Edwards, "and it is in intestable that he is not the only judge as to what is right and becoming in his Ministerial utterances.”