DIRECT CHALLENGE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 August 1938, Page 5

DIRECT CHALLENGE

MRS STONE AGAIN WRITES TO MR SEMPLE MINISTER ASKED TO GO TO COURT (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. A further challenge to the Hon R. Semple to waive his Pariamentary privilege so that he may face an action for slander based on his attack in the House of Representatives on Mrs E. L. Stone is contained in a letter forwarded by Mrs Stone to Mr Semple last night. She asks if the Misister is afraid of the result of a court action and offers to give any damages awarded against him to the Society for the Protection of Women and Children. The letter, which is dated August 11, is as follows: — Dear Sir, —I have consulted a lawyer as suggested by you. He tells me that there is nothing to prevent you agreeing to waive your Parliamentary privilege in a suit for slander. He also says that if you find any difficulty about that, all you need do is to repeat the words complained of upon a public platform. From your place of shelter in the House you bravely said that you would repeat them on every platform in New Zealand. Since you returned to Wellington you have spoken at Ngaio and the Hutt without doing so, and last night you refused 1 to answer a question relating to the matter. Although you have thus run away from both your promise and your charge, you now make matters worse by refusing to apologise and by seeking to justify your attack. Surely you can plead “justification” in a court of law if you really feel that you were justified. Are you afraid of the court’s decision? -Or is it that you do not want me to have any money from you? Will it help you if I agree to pay any damages awarded against you to the Society for the Protection of Women and Children? The justification for what I said is contained in a book on Socialism with a preface by A. J. Balfour, which cites as authorities Robert Blatchford, Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, Mrs Snowden, and others. All I did was to quote what those people have said about the marriage tie under Socialism. That is my justification; but apparently you are not prepared to let any court adjudicate on the justification for your attack on me. In my earlier letter I asked you to show the public that Parliament has not become a castle for cowards. What have you shown them? —Yours faithfully, (Signed) (Mrs) E. L. STONE.