MR BODKIN WINS ON POINTS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21154, 29 September 1938, Page 14

MR BODKIN WINS ON POINTS

By Telegraph—Press Association DUNEDIN, September 28. Mr W. A. Bodkin, National candidate for Central Otago, addressed about 2000 persons in the Town Hall this evening and won a noisy duel with the organised opposition of several hundred, on points. Police intervention was necessary frequently and numerous interrupters were ejected. About half way through the meeting about 200 left in a body leaving the speaker to claim that one man had routed the forces of Socialism. Mr Bodkin attacked Mr Savage and the Cabinet for the sudden retreat from Socialism for election purposes, quoting Ministerial utterances to stress the quondam abandonment of unabashed Socialism. He dealt seriatim with the principal National objections and amendments to the social security legislation, and outlined the National Party’s policy of progressive land settlement as a means to the absorption of the 60,000 men now on public works whose employment by industry had been rendered impossible by Socialist legislation. In spite of organised opposition, a vote of confidence in the National Party was carried with a deafening majority.