MR STOUT IN EXPLANATION.

Evening Star, Issue 3279, 23 August 1873, Page 3

MR STOUT IN EXPLANATION.

To the Editor.

Sir, —It is not my intention to reply to the remarks that you have been pleased to make on the motion moved by me regarding the Dunedin and Moeraki Railway route, and on the statements I made in submitting the motion to the meeting, as, were you to report what I said, your “ leader” would in my opinion need no further reply. I w’ould rather point out the method you have adopted in discussing the two railway routes You make a quotation as if from my speech ; but after carefully perusing your report, I fail to find it. Can it be that you give to vour readers a quotation that you have not reported ? or is it because some of our politicians approve of the Deborah Bay route, and it must be supported at all hazards. In order to do this, I suppose it is allowable to pick out parts of a report from a contemporary, and then comment on the selections you make—carefully keeping back, however, from your readers the context that would more clearly show them the meaning of the speaker,—l am, Sir, your obedient servant, Egbert Stout.

[Whether reported or not, Mr Stout certainly said what we commented upon. We cannot be expected to insert in a report all the nonsense Mr Stout utters.— Ed. E.> S'.]