ELECTION INCIDENT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 June 1941, Page 3

ELECTION INCIDENT

DISCUSSED BY FARMERS A STRONG PROTEST. SOME DISSENTIENTS TO MOTION. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, June 6. “Gestapo methods” were hotly condemned at the annual conference of the North Canterbury district of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union today. Moved on behalf of the executive, the following resolution was adopted: — “That this conference place on record its strong protest against tolerance of any Gestapo methods in this country such as have been alleged to have occurred in Wellington recently toward an election candidate. ’ The resolution was introduced on the order paper under the heading “Democracy.” Moving its adoption, Mr A. M. Carpenter said that members would see in an incident at the recent elections in Wellington a violation of a principle which they, as members of a democracy, deplored. Under a democratic constitution a man had the right to stand up and put forward any views in a constitutional way without being subjected to such treatment as it was alleged had been given to a Wellington election candidate. There was direct evidence, too, that this was not an isolated case by any means. The Farmers’ Union, which stood for principles and not for party politics. should make a strong public protest. This country was founded upon the tradition of free speech, a tradition which was sacred to its people and for which its soldiers were now dying on the battlefields. The conference could not too strongly deprecate the action that had been taken in Wellington. It had, not happened in Canterbury, but it might. Mr W. J. Wright seconded the resolution. Mr W. H. Overton (West Melton) said that West Melton delegates had been instructed to oppose the resolution. He said he had hoped that the mover would have been more explicit in his references. In this country it was'to be remembered that there was British justice available, and if a man wanted protection or redress he should take the matter up himself in the right quarter, the Court. If he did not want to take it up himself, it was not for the North Canterbury farmers to do so. Further, it was another principle of British justice that a man was innocent till he was proved guilty, and there was talk about' Gestapo methods without proof of it. Mr Spencer Bower said he could not entirely agree with Mr Overton’s remarks about justice. Already the people of New Zealand had seen a contravention of British justice in the amendments to the Small Farms Act. They were the thin end of the wedge. The resolution was adopted with some dissentients.