THE LATE PUBLIC MEETING.

Kumara Times, Issue 1428, 30 April 1881, Page 2

THE LATE PUBLIC MEETING.

[to the editor]

Sir —ln answer to a correspondent who signs himself “An Observer,” I would simply say there never were more gross libels published concerning a community than those which appeared in his letter to the West Coast Times on Thursday last, and which contained the most mendacious statements about the meeting held in the Town Hall, Kumara, as to the action of the School Commissioners re the Education Reserve. To say that the meeting was ■composed of “publicans, shanty-keepers, tinkers, fiddlers, tentmakers, and pintpot men,” was simply a deliberate falsehood. The meeting equally represented town and country, there being a fair proportion of both miners and business men present. If there was any one of an objectionable stamp at the meeting, it was the particular writer of the letter above referred to, who skulked in the background, and kept aloof from the proceedings which he now for reasons well known to himself condemns in language borrowed from the least aristocratic quarter of Billingsgate. The residents of the district, luckily, will not be turned aside from the line of conduct they have determined to adopt, until fair justice is done in the matter of the Education Reserve. All the untruths which may be promulgated through certain channels will not prevent the agitation now going on from continuing up to the time when the School Commissioners will listen to reason. Personal abuse, and scurrility of the lowest descriptions are at any time but poor arguments ; but to wantonly insult an entire district, the whole of the interests of which are deeply affected, is simply brutal. I believe there never was a more orderly meeting held upon the West Coast than the one to which the correspondent of the West Coast Times refers. There was an amount of unanimity shown which certainly would not be found in any meeting called together, or presided over by people of the stamp of the individual who signs himself “ An Observer. If the title he has conferred upon himself, fairly describes him, he cannot have failed to “ observe ” that he alone differs from the rest of the community, and after another attempt or so at scribbling, he may sign himself “ The Black Sheep of Kumara.”—l am, sir, yours, &c., Truth. Kumara, April 29, 1881. ♦