A PUBLIC REBUKE.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 457, 19 May 1932, Page 1

A PUBLIC REBUKE.

Deliberate Affront to Mr Willis Alleged. ORDERS FOR AGENT-GENERAL. United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. (Received May 19, noon.) SYDNEY, May 19. The Premier, Mr B. S. B. Stevens, has instructed the Agent-General, Mr A. C. Willis, to desist from advocating the Lang Plan and repudiation for which course he had no authority from the present Government. Mr Willis is also to cease all negotiations for the reduction of interest with British bondholders, as this matter is entirely one for the Australian Loan Council. A London cable says the diplomatic correspondent of the “ Daily Herald ” says that Mr Stevens’s action in publicly rebuking Mr Willis has aroused much comment. It is generally considered that the publication of Mr Stevens’s cable without awaiting Mr Willis’s reply was a deliberate affront made in the hope of provoking Mr Willis to resign.

MR WILLIS’S STATEMENT. (Received May 19, 11.30 a.m.) LONDON, May IS. Mr A. C. Willis has cabled a reply to Mr Stevens, but declines to disclose the contents of his despatch. In a statement to the Press, Mr Willis said that he regarded Mr Stevens’s cable as merely a notification of the Ministry’s policy, on which he was not prepared to comment. “ Mr Lang’s instructions to me have never gone beyond a request for time to pay,” he said, “ and I never understood it as a policy of repudiation.”