“AN IGNORANT SKIPPER”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 499, 31 October 1928, Page 15

“AN IGNORANT SKIPPER”

MR. COATES CRITICISED MR . R. B. SPEIRS SPEAKS OUT Last evening Mr. R. B. Speirs, the United Forty candidate for Auckland West, addressed a large and friendly meeting of electors in the West End : Theatre. The greater part of the evening was spent in criticising the Auckland speech of Mr. Coates and in commenting on the behaviour of the Conservative Press during the last two years. "Mr. Coates," said the candidate, "has said that if the United Party came into power the country would xoon find itself in deep water. "Certainly it would. There is nothing more necessary at the present time than that the Ship of State should be launched out into water deep enough to allow her to float by herself, instead of grinding her plates to pieces on the shoals of economic depression. The United Party lias a man at the helm who knows his job, a pilot with a deepsea certificate, not an ignorant skipper who swaggers along the docks like an admiral, but who has only a harbour limit certificate in his cabin.” Questions relating to unemployment and immigration wero asked, and satisfactorily answered by the candidate, who also made a statement on defence and education. A vote of thanks and confidence in Mr. Speirs was carried at the end of the meeting.