“NOT FAIR PLAY”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 600, 28 February 1929, Page 8

“NOT FAIR PLAY”

SIR JOSEPH WARD’S GRIEVANCE PRESS REPORTS TOO MEAGRE Press Association WELLINGTON. To-day. J»IGHILT o:- wrongly, the presen* Government was in power by support of representatives of people i„ Parliament, and that being so . tha Government was entitled to fair" play front the principal vehicle of pubbe information, supported by and by people of all shades of politu cal opinion in the country, but the Government was not getting such fair play, declared the Prime Minister, the Kt. lion. Sir Joseph Ward, at tha anual luncheon of the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Federation this afternoon.

The Press Association, owned by the whole of the Press, whether Liberal Conservative, or whatever it might be’ and supported by all classes of the people, he said, was bound, as a matter of honourable conduct, to treat all sides in politics fairly. He had no feeling about it. but he wanted to p ut before them, as business men. two recent instances of unfair treatment by the Press Association, whose agents in some parts of New Zealand had deliberately misrepresented the United Party, and deliberately created a false impression with regard to the Reform Party.

Sir Joseph, then resuscitated two in. cidents in connection with the General Election, to which he previously referred in the House of Representatives, and Quoted as ’ another of alleged unfairness, that on th« occasion of the opening of the eiectri fled Lyttelton Tunnel, it was te£* graphed throughout the Dominion than the Leader of the Reform Partv re ceived a great ovation, but nothing was said about the ovation which he Joseph Ward, received. That was not fair nor honest. He did not blame the E£ es * Associatlon for these tactics The blame rested rather on the inrti vidual agents of the association