LABOUR LEADERSHIP

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 October 1938, Page 4

LABOUR LEADERSHIP

STATEMENT BY NATIONAL CANDIDATE DENIED BY THE HON P. ERASER (By Telegraph—Press Association,) WELLINGTON, This Day. A statement reported to have been made yesterday at the deputation from the Early. Settlers’ Association to the mayor of Wellington, Mr T. C. A. Hislop, by the National candidate for Wellington Central, Mr W. Appleton, that “It was well known in this country that Mr Lee ran Mr Savage close for the Prime Ministership,” was answered by the Deputy-Leader of the Government, the Hon P. Fraser, Labour candidate for Wellington Central, speaking at the Oddfellows’ Hall, Kent Terrace last night. Mr Fraser said, if Mr Appleton had been correctly reported, the statement was' entirely incorrect, and he hoped Mr Appleton would withdraw it. Mr Fraser said he knew nothing about Mr Lee’s book and nothing about the particular statements Mr Lee was said to have made. He had no doubt Mr Lee could give a good account of himself in that connection. He , could not understand how the mayor had allowed the deputation to degenerate into an attack on the Labour Party. The Minister said he had, however, noticed Mr Appleton’s statement. He did not know where Mr Appleton got his information; he had been misinformed. “I want to tell him that it is incorrect,” Mr Fraser said, adding that nobody knew more about the position than he did, as secretary of the Parliamentary Labour Party since 1919. It had been his privilege to move that the late Mr H. E. Holland be elected chairman of the Parliamentary .Labour Party in 1919. When the selection of another leader came up on the death of Mr Holland, there was never any question about who he should be. “Nobody else was mentioned but Mr Savage,” Mr Fraser said. “Again at the caucus meeting when Mr Savage was selected as leader of the party and of the Opposition, I had the privilege and honour of being the member of the party to nominate him. There was no other man nominated, and Mr Savage was elected unanimously. He carried the complete confidence of every member of the Labour Party then as he does now.”

Mr Fraser said he wanted to inform Mr Appleton that his statement was entirely inaccurate. “If anybody told him that,” the Minister added, “they told him an untruth, and I regret that he has been the channel of circulating an untruth, and I hope he will 'withdraw the statement.”