ALLEGATION REFUTED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 240, 11 October 1938, Page 7

ALLEGATION REFUTED

NOT CHANGED POLITICAL FAITH. SPEECH BY MR. DOWNE STEWART. [ Per Press Association.! DUNEDIN, Oct. 10. Refutation of an allegation by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Housing, Mr. J. A. Lee, that he had changed his political views, was made by Mr. W. Downie Stewart, former member for Dunedin West and exMinister of Finance, when speaking at a meeting addressed in the Town Hall to-night by the Leader of the National Party, Hon. Adam Hamilton. "I was astonished when I returned from Australia recently,” Mr. Stewart said, "to find that it is being represented in certain quarters that I have changed my political faith. Since the 1935 election campaign I have remained silent because I thought I deserved a rest, but I find it is being represented that my

silence mean« that I no longer share the political faith of Mr. Hamilton. The Parliamentary Under-Secre-tary for Housing, Mr. J. A. Lee, said last week that as he had written a book on Socialism in New Zealand and 1 had also written a book on Socialism in New Zealand, we were both Socialists. My book, however, was a criticism of the undue extension of State control so that Mr. Lee’s statement is rather unfair. “I have not altered my convictions since the last election," Mr. Stewart added. I said then that one of my objections to the Labour Party was that we could not afford the extravagant luxury cl a Labour Government and everyth’ng that has happened in the past "hree years has confirmed that opinion. We welcome Mr. Hamilton's speech and wish him good fortune in the concluding week of his campaign.”