MR. ATKINSON AND HIS CRITICS.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1844, 2 September 1913, Page 4

MR. ATKINSON AND HIS CRITICS.

Sir, —When will it bo possible for a defender of tho national system of education to get a letter into The Dominion without an elaborate editorial "tag" being attached to it? At present 0110 can tell at a glanco which sido a correspondent is taking by looking to soq whether or not you have deemed his letter worth "tagging." In your P.S. to my letter in to-day's issuo you complain of my referring to your roport of my speech as "botched." _ I only desire in reply to. make two things perfectly plain—first, that tho reference was only to a single passage in tho roport; and second, that in that, passago my moaning haa beon seriously misrepresented. You complain of tho tone of my lettor, but you had not a word to say, by way of "tag," to that of' Canon Garland and his friends. Yon credit mo with honesty of motive, yet you seem to approve of tho letter in which I am charged witli deliberate'lying. Don't you think that just for nppeanuic© Bake you might sometimes do a. little "tagging" for tho other sido? —I am, etc,, A. R. ATKINSON.

September 1. [Mr. Atkinson apparently objects to our roplying 'to tlio criticism of correspondents directed against The Dominion. Tlio "tagging" to which ho refers has only occurred in somo halfdozen cases out of the scores of letters we have published from supporters of tlio Defence League; and tlie "tags" have in practically every case boen necessitated by references in the letters to the paper itself. Wo do givo Mr. Atkinson credit for honesty of motive, but he certainly has at times an unhappy knack of ; stirring up unpleasantness and provoking antagonism \\ J her» none existed.]