A DISTURBED MEETING.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 April 1919, Page 3

A DISTURBED MEETING.

(To the Editor). Sir, —Your Midliirst correspondent, in suggesting a want of fair play in the conduct of the recent efficiency meeting, is himself unfair to Mr. Geo. San::ster, the chairman. The facts as given to me by Mr. Sangster are these: The early part of the meeting was persist ently disturbed by an individual full of zeal for the cause of Moderation or Continuance. In endeavoring to maintain order, Mr. Sangster promised the interrupter, and him alone, that he could have ten minutes' hearing when the efficiency speakers had finished. This promise as construed by Mr. Coleman, who is, I believe, the secretary of the local branch of the Licensed Victuallers' Association, as a general invitation to mount the platform. It was, of course, nothing of the kind, and the chairman acted quite properly 111 refusing permission. The hall was engaged by the Efficiency League, and if there was unfairness, if Mr. Sangster's version to me is a correct one—and I have no reason to doubt it —it lay in the attempt of the other side to use the platform for their own purposes. As chairman of the Stratford branch of the Business Efficiency l.i'ngue I feel it incumbent on me to give the other side of the question.—l am, etc. E. MASTERS.