MATTERS PERSONAL.

Feilding Star, Volume XVII, Issue 51, 28 August 1895, Page 2

MATTERS PERSONAL.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE STAB. Sir, — Others besides myself understood that Mr Wilks had challenged me, as several asked me if I was going to accept the challenge. The following extracts from Mr Wilks' letters will enable your readers to judge for themselves :— No. 1. In his letter dated August 6th, he says : " I have written 1o the Feilding Debating Society offering to meet all comers to discuss some of the false principles, &c, &c. . . . Perhaps Mr West may induce the Debating Society to allow him to be one of my opponents." No. 2. On the 20th August he writes : " I certainly never challenged him. . . . But, Mr Editor, perhaps you will allow me to say my offer to lecture gratis. ... In accordance with my offer to the Feilding Debating Society, is open to any other district, Colyton included." I have only to remark that as the challenged party I considered I had the usual privilege of chosing any own weapons. I, therefore, offered to discuss theonly point I had touched on in my letters, (the Rating on Unimproved Value Bill), and I snggested Colyton as being a central place for a farmer audience, and because I heard privately that Mr Wilks had offered to come to Colyton to lecture on the subject. Town readers will notice that the " qfftr to meet all comers" in the first extract, becomes an offer to " lecture gratis " in Mr Wilks explanation in the second. In the interval of waiting applications for his lecture, Mr Wilks can amuse himself by trying to reconcile the above extracts. I am, &c, T. West. Colyton, August 26th, 1895.