The Manawatu Herald. Tuesday, December 20, 1910. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 933, 20 December 1910, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Tuesday, December 20, 1910. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

At last night's Council meeting Cr Speirs said “it hurt him to know that we had in Foxton a newspaper that would publish a remark made at the Council table in open Council without first taking the trouble to find out whether the statement made was true or not.” We can hardly conceive of any public man making such a ridiculous statement. If we started out to look for proof before publishing the utterances of public men we should have to suspend operations till the crack of doom, in common with other journals throughout the wide world. The duty of every well-conducted journal is to publish the utterances of public men, if in the public interest, at public meetings, whether such statements be true or false. The onus of proof must be on the person who makes the statements, not the newspaper. The point is; Cr Robinson accused Cr Speirs, during a discussion at a Council meeting, of voting at the Council table lor a water and drainage scheme and canvassing against it privately. That statement was made by a public man at a public meeting, and seeing that it was of public interest, the public had a right to know it through the medium of the press. Its truth or otherwise is for the two Councillors to settle. Cr Speirs last night stoutly denied the sott impeachment, and Cr Robinson offered to submit evidence in support of the allegation. We shall next be asked to suppress all discussions. If any citizen seeks public life —a very laudible thing to do—he must expect to have his public actions and opinions publicly reported and criticised — must be prepared to be smitten hip and thigh—and if he expects anything else, it would be better, for his own peace of mind, to seek the quiet of his own fireside.