REPLY TO CHALLENGE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 June 1939, Page 7

REPLY TO CHALLENGE

MR SAVAGE & NATIONAL CANDIDATE ADMINISTRATION OF SOCIAL SECURITY. MR LYONS URGED TO GIVE FACTS. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, May 31. Replying to a challenge issued by the National Party candidate for Christchurch South, Mr M. E. Lyons, asking him to publish the set of instructions issued to officers of the Social Security Department, the Prime Minister, Mr Savage, today said: — “If Mr Lyons thinks there is anything questionable in these instructions, let him publish them.” Mr Savage added that Mr Lyons’s own intelligence should tell him there were many regulations and details connected with all Acts of Parliament that were not necessarily embodied in the Act itself. He could assure Mr Lyons and the public generally that the provisions of the Social Security Act would be carried out in full. “Let Mr Lyons come out into ‘the open and say what is at the back of his mind,” said Mr Savage. “Let him talk in plain racts, and not in innuendoes that nobody understands. If he is in possession of anything he thinks should be published, let him publish iti at once. “While I am dealing with Mr Lyons, I will take the opportunity of referring to another statement which Mr Lyons has made,” continued the Prime Minister. “He has said that a certain person is in New Zealand at present, and that- he is here on the same sort of mission as he was when he was in Newfoundland some time ago. “In reply to that, I would say that again the decent thing for Mr Lyons to do is to come out into the open and tell the public what he knows. Let him be quite straight about it, and stop making these unfair innuendoes. “If Mr Lyons knows what is wrong in New Zealand, and if he knows why the individual he refers to is -here, then it is his duty to give everyone the benefit of his knowledge.”