OPPOSITION CRITICISM

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 204, 8 May 1912, Page 5

OPPOSITION CRITICISM

ME. MASSEY ON MR. MACKENZIE. By Telegraph—Press Association. Auckland, Last Night. Referring to the Prime Minister's speech at Balclutha, Mr. Massey eaid that what Mr. Mackenzie did at Balclutha was to give a quotation from an anonymous letter which he says appeared in a London financial journal, and he did not even give the name of the journal. He referred to the Prime Minister's reply as "a miserable quibble," and he repeated his former reply, that any statement that any member of the Opposition attempted to injure the credit of the country in any way was absolutely contrary to fact. The knowledge that a five million loan had been floated in' London came to the House as a surprise, and outside the Cabinet not a single member of Parliament had the slightest idea of the intention of the Government to place such a large loan upon the money market at Home, There was nothing else in Mr. Mackenzie's speech, as reported in Auckland, except the mere point that Mr. Mackenzie said that he (Mr. Massey) had said "a Mackenzie could always be bought." To this Mr. Massey replied: "It is a paltry thing in the extreme, and it is also untrue. As a matter of feat, I have sent a telegram to Mr. Mackenzie as follow*: 'Will you give me your authority for your statement that I said a Mackenzie could always be bought,'" Mr. Massev added that Mr. Malcolm,'member for Clutha. would reply to Mr. Mackenzie at Balclutha.