OPEN LETTER TO MR. SCRIMGEOUR

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 240, 11 October 1938, Page 6

OPEN LETTER TO MR. SCRIMGEOUR

QUESTION BY HON. W. PERRY

WHY WAS CHAIN LETTER READ OVER THE AIR?

NATIONAL PAR ’Y DISCLAIMERS NOT MENTIONED

WELLINGTON, Oct. 10. The following open letter to the Rev. C. G. Scrimgeour has been received by The Evening Post from the Hon. W. Perry, M.L.C., with a request for its publication:— Dear Mr. Scrimgeour,—Last night I heard you read over the air the notorious chain letter attacking the Catholic Church, which has been in circulation for some time past and a copy of which lies before me. As a Catholic, I appreciate your condemnation of the vile effusion which is thoroughly offensive to all who profess the same faith as I do.

No doubt this letter has reached thousands of people, including Catholics. But thousands of people, including Catholics, have never seen it. Why. then, did you read it last night, thus giving it a wider circulation than ever before and sending it into numberless homes hitherto uncontaminated by it? The letter is headed thus: “This is a chain letter. Please copy three times and pass on.” How many times, metaphorically speaking, did you copy it and pass it on last night? The authors must indeed have been * delighted to find in you such a convenient and inexpensive means of disseminating their deplorable sectarian propaganda. I do not believe that you read the letter for the purpose of assisting its authors. I believe you read it with the object of discrediting the National Party. The letter exhorts the people to return the National Party to power thereby conveying at least the implication that the National Party had some cognisance of it. If, in reading it, you did not intend to discredit the National Party, why did you not tell your listeners that the letter has been publicly disclaimed and condemned by the Hon. A. Hamilton, the leader ot that party? Or did you deliberately omit to tell your listeners this so that the implication I have mentioned would be conveyed to your Catholic listeners who had not read either the letter or the disclaimers? Please let me assure you that this letter is not being written at the instigation of the National Party or any member of it. Nor does any member of that party know that I am writing it. I am sending it to the Evening Post this morning for publication, and at the same time am sending you a copy so that you will have an opportunity of immediate reply.—Yours faithfully, W. PERRY. .

AN AUTHORITATIVE DENIAL

NATIONAL PARTY PRESIDENT’ ASSURANCE [ Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Oct. 10. An authoritative denial that th New Zealand National Party was I any way associated with the prepare tion or publication o£ a chain lette: which he says is now being circulate by interested parties to the detrimer of the Catholic Church, is given b the president of the party, Mr. C. I Weston. “No chain letter, on any subject ha had the endorsement of the Nation; Party,” says Mr. Weston, “and w strongly resent the implication by Government-paid propagandist, th Rev. C. G. Scrimgeour, that this part has any knowledge of, or associatio with, it.”