“FAT IN FIRE”

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 115, 5 August 1927, Page 13

“FAT IN FIRE”

RACING CONTROL M.P.’S RESENTFUL THE WAIKATO DISPUTE (THE BL'2s'S Parliamentary Report* r.) WELLINGTON, To-day. Deep resentment appears to havo been aroused among members and Ministers by the publication, by Sir George Clifford, president of the Racing Conference, of correspondence between the Hon. R. F. Bollard and himsel on the Waikato Hunt Club permit for Labour Day, and a hot discussion is expected if the Gaming Bill appears. Both the Legislative Council and the House of Representatives hold that the conference did not do right in transferring the Labour Day date front th ' Hunt Club (which it had held for eight years) to the Racing Club. They recognised that the Waikato Racing Club is deserving of assistance, in view of the club’s financial difficulties, but that the Auckland racing bodies should have come to the club’s assistance, and the conference should not have recommended a “steal” from the Hunt Cl\u» of its date. One member of Parliament who has never been associated with racing likened Sir George Clifford to the "Mussolini” of New Zealand. “We pass an Act and delegate the carrying out of that Act to the Minister responsible to Parliament, anil w** are not going to allow any outside body to interfere,” he said. “If the conference had any statutory powers it could then demand to be recognised.” A Northern member, who is interested in these happenings, said that the fat is now in the fire, and anything might happen when Sir George Hunter’s Gaming Bill is debated on the floor of the House. It is all very sad to see the position come to, but who is to blame for it? Parliament will not tolerate anybody not mentioned in the statute dictating to it when it passes an Act.” _________________