MEMBER’S DENIAL.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 579, 8 October 1932, Page 21 (Supplement)

MEMBER’S DENIAL.

Labour Reply to Farmers’ Charge. TOWN V. COUNTRY ISSUE. (Special to the ** Star.") WELLINGTON, October S. A definite denial that he had taken part in a town v. country controversy, or had asserted that such a controversy existed, was made by Mr W. J. Jordan, president of the New Zealand Labour Party, in reply to contentions made in a resolution passed by the Southern Hawke’s Bay Farmers’ Union. “Owing to the obscurity of the wording of the resolution as it appears in the Press Association message,” said Mr Jordan. “I am at a loss to understand what the union is driving at, and I have taken for granted that it refers to a reply I made some time ago to Mr M’Leod. Mr M'Leod alleged that the Labour Party was taking advantage of the town v. country feeling which it was useless to deny had developed since the general election. In my reply I stated I did not know just what the ex-Minister meant by the words, “advantage of the town versus country feeling,” but that it was a fact that efforts of the past to keep town and country at variance had now been recognised, and that small farmers realised that their interests and those of town workers were identical. I also said that contests in the future were more likely to be between the big landed interests of both town and country, on the one hand, and the working farmers, together with city workers, on the other hand. It is evident that the Farmers’ Union was dividend between large runholders and small farmers. I further added that I trusted the Labour Party would not descend to the tactics that had been resorted to by parties who had used denominational and other prejudices to secure support, and that it was not our desire either to foster or take advantage of a city versus country feeling.” The following resolutions were passed by the executive of the Southern Hawke’s Bay Farmers’ Union: (1) “This meeting of Southern Hawke’s Bay farmers wishes to associate itself with the remarks of Lord Bledisloe on the Ottawa Conference, and regards the recent attack on his Excellency by the leader of the Labour Party as merely the expression of a few thousands of employees enjoying the benefits of highly protected industries at a ruinous cost to the whole State.” (2) “ That until members of the Labour Party who defended in Parliament the dastardly outrages in Auckland and elsewhere against life and property are unconditionally expelled, this meeting, representing the small farmers of Southern Hawke’s Bay, utterly refutes the opinion expressed by Mr W. J. Jordan, M.P., to prove that there is a rift in the Farmers’ Union over the town v. country controversy.”