"CALL A SPADE A SPADE."

Levin Daily Chronicle, 26 June 1917, Page 2

"CALL A SPADE A SPADE."

(To tlie Editor). Sir, —J regret that the limitations of the editorial mind or the exigencies of his position prevented the publication in extciiKo of ni.v lust letter. .1 lcar that since the war all newspaper men have become so accustomed to give the public what the latter's jingo patriotism and narrow insularity make the in desire, rather than the wholesome truth that would be good for their souls, that this censorship and sugaring np has permeated their whole system and among other things makes the editor of the bucolic "Buster" characterise as an "unwise proceeding" the alteration of the lighting scheme, when its real name is a "flaming outrage" or a "Bedlam-born imbecility." "When I send strong wine to the Chronicle I don't like to see it passed on to the public in a form resembling woak lemonade. But I suppose the good people" of Levin, especially the city fathers, would find it irksome to have a newspaper that was a lion of .justice ; they prefer a quiet, tame, tiod-up monkey. The editor, honest man, is obsessed with a keen sense of which side his bread is margiarined on. He knows that wine, however good in itself, and beneficial to the elect, is not for weak heads. So when I suggest that .it certain individual is as weak as a "hangman" he alters the simile to road "scavenger,'' and so the point is lost. If I say that a city father is "unstable as the town idiot," fearing to offend a customer, tho editor chnngcs it to "stodgy as Otaki," and all the raciness is gone. Levin, I notice, now is to get its change of lighting system by instalments. Let me tell you a tale T got from my grandfather. A now council had just been elected ill Wellington, and had 'been celebmting their luck in the old-fashioned way, and not in the modern, lukewarm beverages affeced by tfheir present successor. In hilarious mood 1 they decided to play a practical joke oil the good citizens of Wellingtn, and so they held a meeting and decided to nut a tollgate at Kaiwarra. Next day they found that the people and the press "roared" just as the- people of Levin are libellously said to have done lately. Tho quondam revellers looked sheepishly at each otflier. but none of them would admit that they were drunk when they perpetrated the joke, so the gate had to be proceeded with. .When their protests fell on deaf ears, the citizens incited certain young men to the number of fifty or sixty to demolish the newlv-erected structure. They totally destroyed the gate, and tipped the toll-house into the sea. The councillors, secretly glad of this easy way of saving their faces, instructed the police to keep strenuously looking the other way until the hooligans had completed their work. The prosperity of tlie city was not seriously affected by the waggish freaks of this council, because they decided after the above episode to have their jollifications after the council meetings instead of before. This decision was a great success, and is worth noting.

(Our correspondent goes or. to discuss the new Borough of Shannon, and to give advice to its prospective ' councillors, but want of space, and our anticipations of securing a share of the Shannon printing prevents our publishing this part of the letter.) - A word of advice to borough councillors and small communities: The chief need is "swank"—to quote the words of an old friend of mine who was getting out an illustrated alphabet for the use of (schools:— "S is for swank, as all good boys must know "Swank helps you through when you run a bad show. "Head just a turnip, and stomach, a tank, "There is a chance for you still, if .you swank." But there is a difference. If a council by "swank" is going to spoil the place, why have one? If a council is going to do tilings which the united judgment and good sense of the people declare to be hopelessly wrong; and hurtful, just because the former consider they are in the autocratic position of being able to please themselves, will it not be the height of foolishness to put themselves and their rate money and their infcer- > osit« into the power of such a body of giddy amateurs? Lot Shannon consider! The people of 'Levin, however, are -in exactly the same hole with regard to the council as the council is in in regard to this lighting scheme; i{uul the obvious remedy in each caso involves a confession of inline luiste and want of consideration. The position in a nutshell is "Wo fathered this child, and, though ii is a poor thing, wc stultify ourselves by disowning it." — Yours, etc., A If IiOi'AGU.S.