MINISTER'S PART

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 102, 2 May 1930, Page 7

MINISTER'S PART

PARNELL BY-ELECTION

MR. WRIGHT'S ALLEGATIONS

(By Telegraph.) (Special to "The Evening Post.") AUCKLAND, This Day. A statement attributed to Mr. E. A. Wright, M.P., that the Minister of Health, the Hon. A. J. Stallworthy, has not taken any part in the Parnell byelection, was denied yesterday by the United Party organiser, who said that n it was regrettable that an ex-Minister of the Crown should make a statement which was contrary to fact. Early in the campaign Mr. Stallworthy had delivered an address to a large audience in St. Mark's Parish Hall, Remuera, and had paid a high compliment to the United Party candidate, Mr. W. A. Donald. ■Mr. Stallworthy said- yesterday that if an ex-Minister of the Reform Party had no other weapons than falsehood to use in tho Parnell by-election campaign, ho would have done the Reform Party a service by remaining at home. Mr. Stallworthy said that the. electors at Parnell and of New Zealand generally had every reason to be gratified that a man of' Mr. Donald's personality and undoubted ability, ripened by busi^ ness experience and wide travel, had been sufficiently self-sacrificing'to offer himself for election. He was convinced that, if Mr. Donald was elected, he would render his constituents and the Dominion excellent service. Mr. WRIGHT REPLIES. At his meeting last night, Mr. Wright said, that he wished to throw further light upon tlie position of two Auckland Cabinet Ministers —the Hon. J. B. Donald and the Hon. A. J. Stallworthy. Ho had asked at. his previous meeting why it was that those two gentlemen had refrained from taking any part' in the election campaign. A voice: "Mr. Stallworthy is the finest Minister of Health we have ever had." Mr. Wright: "Of course he was. Did he not have a divino mission? Then when he began making public statements he was soundly spanked by Sir Joseph Ward, who told him he had no business to make such statements. Since then Mr. Stallworthy ha 3 kept as quiet as a mouse." Continuing, Mr. Wright said that Mr. Stallworthy had apparently been very angry. He had said that if an exMinister of the Reform Party had no other weapons than falsehood to use in the Paruell by-election campaign he would havo done the Reform Party, a service by remaining at home. "In spite of tliis unfair imputation of /falsehood on my part," Mr.' Wright added, "I am not going home until this contest is over. The United Party organiser has explained.that Mr.'Stallwortny. did deliver an address to a large audience at the very opening of the campaign. That may be so, but why has he kept out of the contest, since the fighting started? Assuming the organiser's statement is correct, Mr. Stallworthy has fired his first gun, ,but since then he has disappcare'd, like the' man in the ditty. He apparently believes that he who lights and runs away, lives to fight another day." The Hon. E. A. Kansom had also been telling his' audience some extraordinary tales. He had challenged the speaker to say what Acts of Parliament initiated by the United Government he wishes to havo repealed. Mr. Wright said there was never auy question of repealing any Acts. The trouble lay not so much in things which the Government had done as in the things which it had left undone.