MR HOWARD—A QUESTION OF CONSISTENCY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18627, 3 December 1928, Page 9

MR HOWARD—A QUESTION OF CONSISTENCY.

To the Editor. Dear Sir, —The article of your contributor, Mr E. J. Howard, M.P., in' your Saturday’s issue suggests that he is still as deficient in foresight as he was ten years ago, when he was so strenuously opposing my campaign for the tunnel road. In your issue of March 19, 1919, you will find that he was one of the speakers at the mass meeting held in the Colosseum the previous evening, and came to wordy warfare with “ Brother ” Armstrong over the matter. There are many other piquant little situations about the tunnel road agitation. For instance, in 1908, when I first opposed the then popular canal scheme with the alternative of the tunnel road, Mr M’Combs, candidate for Christchurch East, was an out-and-out supporter of the canal with its corollary of scrapping Lyttelton and ruination of Sumner. Perhaps it is this early conviction that is responsible for his indifference to the tunnel road ever since. As Mr M’Combs so wisely remarked in 1908, it is essentially a political question, and the time will come when Lyttelton, Sumner and the Peninsula will seek a more sympathetic member. By the irony of fate “Brother” Armstrong is now M.P. for Crhistchurch East, the stronghold of the canalites, and if his attitude at the Colosseum meeting on March 18, 1919, is any criterion, he had foresight enough then to perceive the wisdom of the tunnel road. If Mr M’Combs and Mr Armstrong cannot exchange their opinions, perhaps they could exchange their electorates.—l am, etc., A COG.