ATTACK ON MINISTER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 February 1942, Page 4

ATTACK ON MINISTER

“POISONOUS CIRCULARS” “CONTAINING TREASONABLE STUFF.” DENOUNCED BY MR SEMPLE. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH. This pay. “Some 26,000 poisonous circulars making personal attacks on me, and some containing treasonable stuff, have been distributed to al! men in the recent call-up of married men without children,” said the Minister of National Service (Mr Semple) this morning. Mr Semple said he was not in the least worried about the attack on himself, but he was worried about the treasonable stuff, and at fact that he was being used as a scapegoat for the distribution of poisonous and treasonable literature that endangered the country. Each envelope sent out with a circular in it bore a 2d stamp, and it was estimated that the cost of the distribution of the circulars would be not less than £6OO. They had obviously been sent out by an organisation and had been posted from all parts of the Dominion. The treasonable portions of the circular, added Mr Semple, contained an appeal favourable to the Japanese and against New Zealand. They virtually urged people not to resist any Japanese invasion and were calculated to impede the Dominion’s war effort. The circulars attempted to give people the impression that he was a conscientious objector in the last war. He was not a conscientious objector in the last war and actually had never been called on to serve, as he had a wife and five young children.