MR. PAYNE’S BROKEN PLEDGE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1140, 30 August 1913, Page 3

MR. PAYNE’S BROKEN PLEDGE.

Some time was taken up by Mr Payne in the House on Wednesday in explaining the pledge that be had given to the Prime Minister after he had been elected member for Grey Lynn. He honestly admitted that he told Mr Massey he would support him on a noconfidence motion, but he held, in the first place, that Mr Massey had no right to ask him what he Was going to do, and subsequently he discovered that Mr Massey was “a political prevaricator of the truth.” Called to order by Mr Speaker, Mr Payne withdrew the term, but said that Mr Massey had misled him. When he came down to Wellington he found that Mr Massey’s innuendos about extravagant borrowing were without foundation. He then considered that he was entitled to go back on his word of mouth. Mr Massey, later in the evening, read a letter to him from Mr Payne, date nth January, 1912 : “Alpha Road, Parnell, “Auckland, January nth, 1912. “W, F. Massey, Esq., M.P., ‘Franklynne,’ Mangere, Auckland. “Dear, Mr Massey,— “I only returned home to Auckland this morning from holiday making in Napier, and am therefore only just in receipt of your letter of the 6th instant. “Reading your letter in the light of Sir Joseph Ward’s recent manifesto in the press in connection with the Assembly of Parliament on February 15th, may say that there will be no wavering on my part in connection with voting the Government out on a noconfidence motion, and shall use my best endeavours to see that there is no vacillation on the part of other labour members. “Candidly we, the worker representatives, know that we have to strike out entirely on our own account, but in connection with the no-confidence motion every Labour man must see that it is the desire of the country to have a change of Government, if only for general inquiry purposes, and although the principles of the Opposition or of Liberalism are not the principles of Labourism, I personally believe that you are quite alive to the fact that a Labour Government entirely is not very far ahead, and further believe that you will do all in your power to further Labour legislation along rational lines, and where not in distinct opposition to the platform of your party. “Yours faithfully, “Jno. Payne.”