MR. ATKINSON AND HIS CRITICS.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1860, 20 September 1913, Page 13

MR. ATKINSON AND HIS CRITICS.

Sir,—lt is interesting to observe that Mr. Atkinson's pica that his fel-low-citizens should cer.tity that he is an honourable mail has brought Professor Picken into tho field.' Perhaps Mr. Atkinson will sleep sounder o' nights now that a university magnate has testified that ho is not tho kind of man that needs props, but tho kind of man that props less vertebrate mortals.

Most of us will agree with Professor Picken that Mr. Atkinson has some claim to be regarded aB a. strong man, but most of us, I imagine, will also opine that ho lias done little of late to make his claim good. It is not too much to say. that his mingled abuso of his opponents and loud protestations of his honour havo lost him caste with many of his former friends. Ho attacked tho Biblc-in-schools party, assailing them in terms that were bound fo bo strongly resented. What did ho do as soon as his charges were repudiated? Quietly and courteously disclaim having used tho expressions attributed to him in your report of his speech. He did indeed deny the uso of oiio of the words in tlio objeetionablo phrase, and ho ■. submitted a context which differed in some measure from that provided in your report, but at the same time ho mado tlio welkin ring with his cries of injured innocence, with his 1 hectorings and sneers and threatenings. Even tho law of tho land was to ho invoked and the terrors of libel hold over the head of one of the clerics who had ventured to assert that the Biblo-in-schools party were not wliat Jfr. Atkinson was reported to

havo called them. It was a precious spectacle! Mr. Atkinson in his lordly way can say what he chooses about men as honourable as himself, but no sooner do they repudiate his charges than tho flood gates aro opened _ and they are deluged with vituperation. Mr. Atkinson is Sir Oracle, when lie opens his mouth no dog may bark. Mr. Atkinson lias denied the use of tho phrase with which ho is credited, but it seems to have escaped notico that .if tho offensivencss of tho phrase is to be measured by Mr. Atkinson's indignation at tho bare suggestion that ho did describe his opponents as a blend of "political cant and religious bigotry," the criticism in which the clerics indulged is mildness itself. One wonders what Mr. ' Atkinson would havo so id of Mr. Atkinson if Mr. Atkinson had vented the objectionable expression. But Mr. Atkinson gave apparently no thought to this. The tone of his letters, his references to Canon Garland and Dr. Gibb, his "cheap pleasantries." as you felicitously described them, his scouts 'stationed in the churches, a performance which will not speedily bo forgotten. Mr. Atkinson is an honourable man, but it will require henceforth a strenuous imagination to think of him as a courteous am! hiiih-minded man. You have given him a very full opportunity of proclaiming his manifold virtues, and doubtless he has thus found some solatium for his lacerated feolimrs, . hut n_* one read these repeated protestations there occurred to one's memory a sentence from the book Mr. Atkinson is so anxious fo bar out of the schools: "Lot another praise thee, not thine own mouth."—l am. etc.. OBSERVER,