MR. MUNRO’S SPEECH

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 278, 26 November 1935, Page 7

MR. MUNRO’S SPEECH

Labour’s Other Voice ACCURACY OF REPORT VOUCHED FOR BY DAIL? " TIMES EVERY WORD CORRECT [ Per Press Association. T DUNEDIN, Nov. 25. Air. Munro has issued a statement emphatically denying that anything in his speech could be so construed as to mean that the Labour Party, an avowedly constitutional political party, would under any circumstances resort to using guns or smashing anything as attributed to him. Air. Alunro further states that the report in the Daily Times of Friday was a deliberate and unscrupulous misquotation of his speech. To this the Times, in a leader, says, inter alia:— “Mr. Munro was reported competently and accurately by an experienced journalist of unimpeachable integrity, and should, therefore, have no grievance, but he was .reported, hence the trouble. As for what he said, not all his piety or wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all his tears wash out a word, of it. All the vociferations of colleagues on his behalf must bo equaliy superfluous and futile. When speakers make statements in public which they afterwards regret as unfortunate, or injudicious or tactless, they not infrequently endeavour to make out that they have been misrepresented. Mr. Munro goes a step further.. Our report, he now declares, to have been a ‘deliberate and unscrupulous’ misquotation. He does not venture to say in what respect he considers it did him an injustice. It is the business of the Press to be accurate in its reports. Our report of Mr. Munro’s speech was entirely accurate. Public speakers do not always feel the same obligation of accuracy as lies on the Press. Even Parliamentary candi* dates can be strangely forgetful of what they said from the public platform.’’ LABOUR PLAN REVEALED LABOUR NEWSPAPER GIVES MR. MUNRO A LEAD (Special to “Chronicle.”) WELLINGTON, Nov. 25. ? Mr. Savage and. other Labour .n:en> bers now apologise for Mr. Munro. Mr Munro, in his telegram to Mr. Savage, says that he has been misrepresented. In reply to these Labour members who, by the way, were not at the meeting at Woodhaugh, they are flatly contradicted by the newspaper reporter who was at Woodhaugh and who took a careful note of what Mr. Munro actually did say. Is there any other evidence of this Labour plan to go out and snatch things? Other Labour speakers have hinted that they ar2 all prepared for emergencies. To those who are prepared to regard Mr. Munro’s utterance as an isolated one and not representing the official view of the Labour Party, it is quite pertinent to refer to a newspaper entitled “New Zealand Forward.’’ This is referred to as the official views of Labour in the South. It is registered as a newspaper at the General Post Office, Wellington. Copy number 7, dated 9th. Novelfiber, 1935, is specially headed “Special Church Edition.” In that issue, on Page 3 is a picture of Mr. J. W. Munro, M.P. Alongside it is a picture of the Rev. E. T. Cox, Labour candidate for Clutha. On Page 5, column 2, is a heading “Needed A Revolution.” A significant paragraph on the same page and column reads as follows, headed: “It’s Got To Come.’’ “Peacefully and constitutionally, or with revolution and blood; with the Christian Church or without it. You cannot stop a moving body without friction.’’ When it is realised that that statement is made by the official Labour paper in Dunedin on 9th November, 1935, it is idle for Mr. Munro or any other Labour supporter to assert that the Labour Party i: a constitutional party. The sentiment right throughout the issue of the N.Z. Forward for November 9 deliberately states in cold print the same determination to smash things as Air. Munro did a fortnight later in his public speech at Woodhaugh. With this evidence it is idle for anyone to £eny that Mr. Munro has definitely, if inadvertently, revealed the carefully considered decision of the Labour Party to sweep aside with brutal force all who dare to oppose them.-- (P.8.A.).