SOMEWHAT STRAINED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20128, 23 December 1939, Page 3

SOMEWHAT STRAINED

CABINET RELATIONS POSITION OF MR. LEE COMMENT OF MR. CARR (Pur Press Association.) TIMARU, this day. Interviewed yesterday, Mr. Clyde Carr, the Labour member of Parliament for Timaru, who is a prominent member of the so-called Left Wing of the Parliamentary Labour Party, said it was general knowledge that the relations between Mr. J. A. Lee, the member for Grey Lynn, and the Minister of Finance, the Hon. W. Nash had been somewhat strained. Mr. Lee’s position as Under-Sec-retary to the Minister had been purely nominal since the Hon. ID T. Armstrong had assumed the portfolio of State Advances and Housing. Apparently Mr. Lee’s recent article in To-morrow brought matters to a head. In the opinion of Mr. Carr, the article was well written, but precipitate. It was always dangerous, he said, to indulge in over generalisation. Measure of Dissatisfaction Mr. Carr said that Mr. Lee, Mr. Carr and others connected with them agreed that the Labour Government, including Mr. Nash, had done a great deal to implement the Labour Party's pledges, but in certain respects they were not satisfied, particularly regarding matters financial, and banking legislation and administration generally. These, to a large extent, represented different attitudes of mind inevitable in any intelligent group. Though Mr. Carr deprecated and said he detested hero worship, lie said he realised that changes of leadership must never be considered without a due sense of their gravity. Agreements within the party vastly outnumbered the differences, just as their differences with the Opposition vastly outnumbered the agreements with them. Obvious Implication The obvious implication of Mr. Lee’s article was that the present Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. iM. J. Savage, was allowing his sense of duty to outweigh his due 1 regard for his own health. At least that was how Mr. Carr would have expressed it. To Mr. Lee, it would appear rather that it was a mistaken sense of duty and that Mr. Savage’s condition of health should occasion him even more concern from a national than a personal point of view. Mr. Savage’s disposition to overrule the will of the caucus might be due to other causes and it was a problem to be considered without passion or conflict of irrelevent matters, such as his health. The problem, however, should be dealt with promptly and effectively.