CANDIDATE SAYS HE WAS REVILED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 85, Issue 111, 14 May 1941, Page 6

CANDIDATE SAYS HE WAS REVILED

WELLINGTON ELECTION FIVE TRADE UNION OFFICIALS MAN ALLEGEDLY LOCKED IN AND ABUSED THREATS MADE AND APOLOGY DEMANDED (Press Assn.) Wellington. May 13. Allegations that, following comment by him on a number of union secretaries on Labour tickets for local body elections, five Trade Union officials waited on him in his office, reviled him because he was a Jew and told him h? was a money grabber, and demanded a written apology and, for a time, locked him in his office, were made by Mr. H. L. Nathan, Citizens’ candidate for the Harbour Board, addressing a meeting in Kelburn Tea Kiosk tonight.

The action alleged to have been taken by union officials was strongly condemned by the Mayor, Mr. T. C. A. Hislop, speaking after Mr. Nathan. “I intended repeating part of the speech I delivered at Wadestown last Thursday evening,” Mr. Nathan said. “In that speech I said ‘I have gone through the nominations for the Labour Party for the Wellington City Council. Hospital and Harbour Boards, and I find included in the nominations eight union secretaries and two ex-union secretaries who are candidates for the City Council, five union secretaries candidates for the hospital board and two union secretaries and two ex-union secretaries candidates for the Harbour Board. I want to. know, and, you, ladies and gentlemen, should also want to know how can these Labour secretaries do justice to the city and ratepayers and have an impartial mind while they are under the dictation of Labour unions? There is no doubt these secretaries, only naturally, have to bow to that authority in order that they can keep their employment.’ ”

“How did some of these Labour union officials react to this statement? I will tell you. At 12.30 p.m. on Friday last, I was rung up by a well-known Labour union official who asked whether I would give him an appointment. I said I could see him at 2.30, and he said he would bring another Labour union official along with him, but at 2.30 p.m. five Labour union officials arrived at my office. They shut the door behind them and immediately began to abuse me. They called me the scum of the earth and reviled me because I am a Jew. They told me no Jew should hold any public position in the country. Also, that. I was a money grabber; that I was not a producer like them, and that I ought to be at the war.

“Fancy my being told I ought to be at war at. 62 years of age. I told them my only son had just been fighting at the battle of Olympus. “One shook his first in my face twice, and demanded I should make a written withdrawal of the statement I made at Wadestown and a written apology. Another threatened if I did not withdraw and apologise in writing, he would take steps to stop my travelling in steamers, trains and trams, and would stop delivery of meat, bread and milk to my house. “At one stage one of them locked the door and locked me in my own office. I am glad to be able tn tell you that I refused to comply with these demands. Things have come to a pretty pass in New Zealand when a citizen standing for a public 'office should be subjected to such treatment as this, and I consider it is in the interests, and for the benefit of, the public that the facts should be made known.”

Mr. Nathan said he was not in a position to say any more about the incident that night. "We have mob rule in this country,” he said, “and I had the experience of 35 minutes of mob rule on Friday afternoon.”