THAT REMARKABLE STATEMENT.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1225, 6 September 1911, Page 4

THAT REMARKABLE STATEMENT.

Inquiries mado iu the House respecting the extract we reprinted from the Westminster Gazette in our leading article of yesterday elicited from tho Prijik Minister tho statemerit that he had telegraphed to Sir William Hall-Jones for an explanation. We ai'3 not told what he said in his message to the High Commissioner, and it will not be easy, therefore, to know what value can be given to whatever Sir Joseph Ward may communicate to the House as Sir William's reply. It is necessary to say this, because of tho Peijie Minister's concluding remarks, which _ do not promise much candour on his part. He concluded his statement by saying: "It sounds very much as if it came from some of those journals which disregard even a semblance of accuracy when criticising the Government." It is unnecessary for The Dominion, whose chief crime in tho Government's eyes is really its accuracy in criticism, to take much notice' of vague charges of error coining from a Minister notoriously inaccurate himself. But we cannot allow to pass unnoticed the insinuation, oven when the person making it is Sir Joseph Ward, that we invented or manipulated the paragraph concerned. So we had better state that the paragraph we printed as appearing in the Westminster Gazette was cut from the lower part of the third column of the eighth page of the late extra edition of the Gazette of July 22, and printed in full and exactly as it appeared in that paper. We should not be surprised if the Prime Minister were, as his next move, to suggest that tho Gazette is in the pay of his enemies, so, for the benefit of those who do not know this fine and world-famous journal, we had better say that it is the leading Liberal journal in London, and one of such high repute that it is admired and respected almost more by those who disagree with its opinions than by its friends. The Prime Minister knows this; lie knows that our reprint wasfull and exact; and yet he makes .insinuations like that wo have quoted.