MINISTER'S CHARGE DENIED

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 212, 23 September 1937, Page 8

MINISTER'S CHARGE DENIED

-Press Association.)

Mr. Doidge Did Not Inspire London Articles PRESS COMMENT ON N.Z.

(By Telegraph-

AUCKLAND, This Day. A categorical dehial of alleged references to himself by the Minister of Finance as author or inspirer of London Press cirticisms of the New Zealand Government's policy was made by Mr F. W. Doidge. Tlie Minister was repor-ted as having said in the House of Rcpresentatives on. Tuesday: "Wliile I was in London cortain articles appeared in tlie Evening Standard, and I have no doubb wliatever that they were ifispired in New Zealaud. Similar articles were allegedly being published here m the torm/ of messages from tlie Daily Lxpress. Lord Beaverbrook, who controls the- Evening Standard, is- associated with a personality who runs around New Zealand, and he advised the British people to put their money in Japan rather than in New Zealand." "The Minister of Marketing, from a safe and privileged position jn Parliament, infers that a statement derogatory to New Zealand w:hich appeared in the London Evening Standard was inspired by me. Tliat is untrue," said Mr Doidge to-day. "Tlie statement in question was written by Mr S.» W. Alexander, city editor of the Evening Standard. It -was incorporated in several odd paragraphs in Mr Alexander's column of city notes which appear daily on the back page in the pa-per. Those paragraphs could have been written by ar/yone who liad rcad Mr Savage's

lamous speech ahput 'houncing the bali,' a speech which received considerable prominence in eVery London newspaper, and by anyone who liad read Mr Nash's equally fatuous -speeclies on fiscal policy. Seemingly members of tlie Government, long altiicted with supersensitiveness to criticism, are now about to develop a persecution mania. "I agree with the Minister of Marketing that one should not cry 'stinging fish' outside one's own country. I have been repeatedly urged to qontribute articles to the London Press I have refused to do so. Early in tlie present year the London Daily Expreps cabled me and asked for a contirbution to a newspaper feature on Enipire trade prospects. I made tliat contribution, dcclaring New Zealand was assured of an ora of prosperity providing the Government's iiscal policy did notliing to imperil the position of the primary produeing industries. 1 have a proi'ound contempt for those who slielter in tlio t'unk-lioles of anonimity, and immediately that article was dispatched to Gondon I lianded a copy over for pubUcation in tho New Zealand Press under uiy own narne. Tliat represents the oue and only contribution I have made to a London newspaper on New Zealand politics. "The Minister also seeks personally to identify Lord Beaverbrook with Mr Alexander's • article in the Evening Standard. When that article appeared Lord Beaverbrook was — and had been for tlie best part of a year — seriously lll in Arizona. Equally preposterous is the Minister's statement that Lord Beaverbrook personally advocated British loans to Japan in preference to New Zealand. The veriest tyro in Jmperial politics iknowis that for years Lord Beaverbrook, in the Press and on the platform, has been the greatest exponent of Empire and has led aetive crusades against foreign loans by Britain when the Doininions offered a so much better and safer field l'or investment. "In New Zealand I liave been one of tlie Minister's keenest crities, but my criticisms have been with'out rancour, without iimuendo( and they have been made openly and publicly. The .act that I was at oue time a director of tho London Evening Standard is no doubt an aid to the Minister's halucination, but I repeat that neither directly nor indirectly -did I seek to inspire articles in the London Standard. I challenge the Minister to prove his statement."