BRIDGE DEPUTATION

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 666, 18 May 1929, Page 13

BRIDGE DEPUTATION

ANOTHER M.P. PROTESTS “CALLS FOR SOME EXPLANATION”* Referring to recent newspaper reports concerning the visit of the Harbour Bridge Association to the Minister of Internal Affairs, Mr. H. G. R. Mason, M.P., has telegraphed to the Minister protesting against the procedure adopted. An outside member of Parliament was present, the details of the interview were reported to be confidential, yet neither of the local members of Parliament were present or communicated with, Mr. Mason alleges. This procedure was so unusual as to call for some explanation, said Mr. Mason. The explanation seemed to lie in the fact that the president of the Harbour Bridge Association was recently the rival of Mr. A. Harris, M.P. for Parliamentary honours and was desirous of using the association to promote his own Parliamentary aspirations and to prejudice Mr. Harris as a rival candidate. Mr. A. Harris, M.P., had until the recent General Election represented the whole of the North Shore district, and naturally had been in charge of any representations made to Parliament in reference to the bridge. He had served the association ably and zealously. If the president thought otherwise (and as a rival Parliamentary candidate it was quite conceivable that he might think otherwise), then it was open to him to call upon Mr. Mason, who now represented portion of the district. Possibly he knew that application to Mr. Mason wodld have been no discourtesy to Mr. Harris. Mr. Mason had had no communication from the Harbour Bridge Association in reference to its deputation to the Minister, and his . first knowledge was the newspaper report that it had gone to Wellington with an outside member of Parliament, and that the details of the interview were not for publication. It was a very wholesome rule that differences in the election campaign did not prevent a member of Parliament from being available to help all constituents, and the present case but emphasised the soundness of the rule. Whether or not the president of the Bridge Association could advance his political aspirations by ignoring this wholesome rule, the established and well-proved practice could not be departed from with benefit to a member’s constituents.