GOVERNMENT AND THE OPPOSITION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 85, Issue 112, 15 May 1941, Page 8

GOVERNMENT AND THE OPPOSITION

COMPLAINT THE ‘TRUCE” HAS BEEN VIOLATED MR. HOLLAND'S TELEGRAM (Press Assn.) Invercargill, May 12. A telegram protesting against what he calls a flagrant breach of the agreement between the Government and the Opposition parties was sent to-day to the acting-Prime Minister (Hon. W. Nash), by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. S. G. Holland), who is at present in Invercargill. The agreement was, "to minimise public platform political propaganda,” and Mr. Holland contends that the recent statements by the Ministers of Health and Industries and Commerce have broken the terms of this agreement. The full text of Mr. Holland's •telegram is as follows: "With a desire to promote national unity I made an agreement with the Prime Minister to minimise public platform political propaganda for a certain period, and I have strictly observed that arrangement, declining to permit any publicity for my speeches at party meetings. Last week newspapers gave full publicity to a violent attack on the medical profession by the Minister of Health, and later the Minister of Industries issued a purely propaganda statement about industrial licensing. I regard these published statements as a flagrant breach of the arrangement agreed to by the Prime Minister, and unless I receive an assurance that such breaches of the arrangement will not be repeated I shall understand that the Government does not intend to honour the arrangement, and shall act accordingly. "The public is heartily sick of this constant persecution of doctors, especially when so many of them are sacrificing so much to tend our sick and wounded countrymen on foreign battlefields. and, more especially, seeing that the doctors have complied with every requirement of the law. ’Please let me have a prompt reply whether similar publicity to Ministerial propaganda is to be permitted in the future."