NOT RECEIVED

Waikato Times, Volume 126, Issue 21082, 8 April 1940, Page 8

NOT RECEIVED

MR BARNARD’S LETTER

STATEMENT BY MR FRASER NO REFERENCE TO SEAT HELD AS LABOUR MAN (By 'reiegraph.—Press Association) WELLINGTON, Monday At 1.30 this afternoon the Prime Minister, the Hon. P. Fraser, had not received the letter from the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Hon. W. E. Barnard, tendering his resignation from the Labour Party. The letter had been read over to him last night by a Hawke’s Bay editor, to whom he had put the question whether Mr Barnard mentioned that he proposed to follow the logical and honest course, and resign his seat as Member for Napier and re-contest it against a Labour candidate. “This question was put by me last night, and as I have not received the letter I cannot comment upon it in detail,” Mr Fraser said. “It would appear, however, that Mr Barnard no doubt inadvertently omitted any reference to his intention to tender his resignation as Member for Napier—to which seat he was elected as the endorsed candidate of the Labour Party—or any reference to the Speakership, to which position he was again nominated by the Government party, and to which he was elected on the motion of the late Prime Minister. “I have no doubt that these omissions will be rectified at the earliest possible moment, in accordance with ordinary codes of honour.”