BOOK ON SOCIALISM

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 October 1938, Page 6

BOOK ON SOCIALISM

MR LEE AND HIS OPPONENTS. COMPLAINT OF UNFAIR QUOTATION. (By Telegraph —Press Association.) TAIHAPE, This Day. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Housing (Mr J. A. Lee) addressed an 'enthusiastic meeting here, at the conclusion of which a vote of thanks to the speaker and confidence in the Labour Party and also in the Hon F. Langstone, as the candidate for the electorate, was passed. Mr Lee was vigorously cheered. He quoted extensively from his book on “Socialism in New Zealand” in order to support his contention that he had been misrepresented by quotations separated from the context. He said Mr O. C. Mazengarb had alleged that he had stated that criminals had influenced the character of New Zealand. Mr Lee read a passage from the book in which he pointed out that he had merely quoted a reference by Charles Darwin to runaway convicts and runaway sailors before the settlers came. He had then referred to vagabonds and adventurers, but vagabonds and adventurers were not criminals. Mr Lee added that this reference had appeared on only one page of nearly three hundred pages of the book. The remainder of the pages had been devoted to a eulogy of those who had built up the Dominion, its pensions and other social services.