HEAR! HEAR!

Taranaki Daily News, 20 June 1916, Page 4

HEAR! HEAR!

CEfRISTOHURCH MAYOR SPEAKS OUT.

WILL \*QT PERMIT LABOR MEMBERS TO ADDRESS A MEETING OX SUNDAY.

By Telegraph.—Press Association.

Christchurch, Last Night. At a meeting of the City Council tonight a letter was received from Mr. F. R. Cooke, who forwarded a Socialist resolution of protest against the action of the Mayor 111 refusing permission to Messrs J. McCombs, P. Webb, A. H. Hindmarsh, and J.■'Payne, Members of Parliament, to address a meeting in the city on Sunday. Or. Otley moved that the letter be laid 011 the table.

The Mayor said,that the meeting was purely a political one, in which the speakers wished to explain their position. He did not approve of giving permission to the gentlemen to take up a collection, when those gentlemen were getting £3OO a year each. There was ample time to hold political meetings on six days in the week, without utilising Sunday. Many people in the Dominion strongly disapproved of such meetings on the Sabbath. Another reason for his refusal to grant permission for the meeting wa,s that the Military Service Bill had passed the Lower House, and there could be no good done in • further discussing it, but there was possible harm. "I don't think it is my duty to help gentlemen who ought to go to the front and won't, but who spend their time acting in a manner which is liable to dissuade other eligible men from enlistiiig," concluded his Worship. Cr. Otley's; motion was carried.