RED, NOT PALE PINK

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 504, 6 November 1928, Page 13

RED, NOT PALE PINK

LABOUR’S COLOUR UNCHANGED

One lone hand was raised in dissent to a motion of thanks and confidence in Mr. F. N. Bartram, Labour candidate for Grey Lynn, at the conclusion of a meeting in the Adelphi Theatre, Grey Lynn, last evening. An attentive hearing was given to the candidate and there was a total absence of interruption of any kind. Even the aggravating “Shortie” was missing.

Mr. Bartram said that some people remarked that the Labour Party was not so “red” as it was, but was now a pale pink. That was not the case; the objectives of the Party were the same as ever, and it would go on as in the past to try and bring about a change in the present rotten system of Government. He dealt with finance and the Party’s insurance proposals. After detailing the profit made by the insurance companies he declared: “We are just as ‘red’ as ever and we are after those insurance profits, and when we get them we will make New Zealand a paradise for the working man.” Referring to a statement by an opponent that he had not spoken of unemployment until three weeks before the closing of the session he said it was the most contemptible statement ever made by a public man and quoted from Hansard to refute it.

Mr. Bartram asserted that the United Party organiser, Mr. Davey, had said that the United Party had been created to light the socialistic tendencies of the Reform Party. The Uni teds were trying to crawl into the shades of the old Liberalism, and had he, Mr. Bartram, to choose between two parties he would vote for Reform.

Loud applause greeted the speaker at the conclusion of his address. One question, relating to the trouble at Arapuni, was asked, but not answered, Mr. Bartram saying he could not answer it off-hand, but would do so at a later meeting.