Original Correspondence

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 435, 21 September 1880, Page 2

Original Correspondence

[We are at all times ready to give expression to every shnde of opinion, but in no caso do we hold ourselves responsible for the opinions expressed by our correspondents.]

LITTLE AKALOA SCHOOL COMMITTEE. To the Editor.

Sir, —In a report in the issue of Sept. 14, re Little Akaloa School Committee you will observe that your correspondent is accused of having reported the last meeting, in anything but an impartial manner and my whole report is called by Mr Barker " a pack of lies." As your valuable columns are the only outlets I have for vindicating my report, I must ask your indulgence for a few lines to reply to this unfounded and equally false charge. Hitherto the proceedings of these School Committee meetings have beon held in a private manner and when I became your correspondent, I after due enquires as to tho legality of the steps, proceeded to report on them.

The report in question has been read by three of the committee who pronounced it a most fair and impartial account of the proceedings of the meeting on Sept. 6, and I must say that I think Mr Barker's ideas of truth, if he has any, are very much obscured. Had I reported the proceedings verbation, I might have pleased Mr Barke better, as some of the recriminations were not of the most elegant phraseology; as it was, I endeavored to convey the ideas and resolutions of the meeting in modern English and tried to arrange them in a rather more , grammatical manner than that in which they were uttered. Perhaps this manner of treating a School Committee aa a number of gentlemen is ac novel as it is offensive to Mr Barker, but I must inform that gentlemen that having been used to the society of gentlemen all my life, I find it very difficult to break off my old habits, and I suppose that Mr Barker finds the same in his case. I should have deemed this beneath my notice but I feared my silence might have been misinterpreted ; and I consider a reporter ought to discharge his duty in a fearless manner. I may also add that I am no novice in the art of reporting and consequently shall not bo deterred from giving a faithful report of any future meeting, no matter how it may wound the very susceptible feelings of a few,—l am etc.

H. V. CHICHESTER.

To the Editor. Sib, —Allow me in justice to your correspondent to make a remark on Mr Barker's statement in referrence to the report of the meeting of Sept. 6 which I cannot allow to pass unchallenged. Hβ accused the Reporter of favoring ono side o£ the Committee in his report and also called it a pack of lies. I consider the account is a most faithful one of the proceedings of the meeting, and we are greatly indebted to your reporter for the graceful manner in which it is worded. I am, etc., JOHN W. BENNETT, Chairman.