BASELESS CHARGES

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3146, 26 July 1917, Page 5

BASELESS CHARGES

Ml question without warrant.

A chargo was made by implication Against two well-known Now Zealand : families in the House of Eepresentatives '. yesterday in a' question: of which Mr. ' Payne gave notice. Mr. Payne asked whether it' was not a fact that the eons •:«{ Messrs. John - Eoberts aild A. H. Miles, two members of the firm of Murray,. Roberta and Co. had not enlisted.

Sir James Allen took occasion" to answer the question put of hand a few minutes later. Members ought to bo cautions, ho said, about asking these questions, suggesting that some men were not doing their duty. He was very sorry to have to .make a statement' of, the kind, liut he was bound, ill justice to the two fentlemen named, to refer to tho matter. Ir. John Eoberts had only two sons, and both! of them had been married for ten years. Ono was Lieutenant-Colonel Eoberts, who had been employed at Defence Headquarters since August 4,. 1914. Ho liad given his services without pay. : He had been declared unfit for service, but if ho had not been rejected as unfit he as Minister would be very much against his leaving his present position, in which )\6 was doing very valuable work. Tho other was Mr. James'. Roberts, of Dunedin, and ho had, as he had said, been married for some ten years. He also had teen declared medically unfit. One of the sons of Mr. Miles had been turned down medically unfit, and the other had been to the front, and had returned to New Zealand-rwoundcd.