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Lyttelton Times, Volume VI, Issue 371, 24 May 1856, Page 8

To the Editor of the Lyttelton Times. Sir,—Having read in your Saturday's publi« catiou an answer to a letter of mine, or rather a would-be refutation of facts stated in mine; permit me to say, I should have been obliged to " Matter of Fact" had he, instead of quoting Bulwer's " Caxtons,'' examined the English grammar for the explanation of several sentences in the letter. Perhaps he might then have got the Caxton relationship (which he seems to have found) entirely out of his head ; and then, without attempting to criticise a subject which, with all due deference to the public and himself, I must say he knows apparently very little about. The meaning as implied in mine, as a ref'utatation, takes, is this, that very many of the farmers are working on storekeeper's capital, and instead of going on as debtors to enable them to continue farming, mine implied, by mentioning storekeepers, that it was their accounts, and not their capital, that the farmers owed to them, for which I expressed a wish that the creditors should deal leniently with them for the present. Also, I beg to remind " Matter of Fact," that the farmers have it not at their option to pay high or low wages, but pay they must to continue farming a very heavy rate, not out of the storekeepers' advanced capital, but out of their own resources. Also, I think, if the times get worse as to the price of coin, instead of the farmers showing to the public what sort of blood they are at the risk of being ruined, they had better turn to profitable occupations without^ if possible, so very great a risk, or requiring so large and increasing a demand of bodily labour, stretched as it is in many cases, to the utmost tension, by parties who have their own shoulders to the wheel. I will now give " Matter of Fact" a piece of advice as to criticising. Firstly, that it is better to re-read a letter when he is criticising its contents, and not illustrate supposed errors by real ones ;also criticise without pawning additions, and then if not able to accomplish that, write a critising, article, without first understanding the position and real state of the subject, and supposed errors, not theoretically, but in a sound practical view, not in a suppositious one. lam sure, then, he would not have put forward refutations and assertions on subjects connected or adduced in my letter, nor could he, had he read it closer and more attentively, as they would have been found not to exist. With many apulogies to you, Mr. Editor, for the length of my note,—the only thing I can plead, but which is very strong, is the vindication of mine honor or truth as assailed by " Matter of Fact, '' —

I remain, Yours truly, Agricola,